A Space to Grow
by stand-by-me-noctis
Summary: Despite everything, Cloud thinks himself lucky. He has group of friends who survived the worst together, and who have done everything in their power to help him heal from everything he's lost. Thanks to them, he's finally found something like happiness...but old wounds can be reopened, and Cloud's no longer the only person with a life to rebuild. Cross-posting from AO3.
1. Chapter 1

It was the perfect day for some introspection under the sun. Or clouds, as would be the case before long. A winter storm was on its way to the remains of Midgar, but for now the sky felt tense and cold. _Like me_ , thought a blond man, perched on a cliff in the wasteland.

He had not been to this rocky outcrop in a while, but today was special. It was only fair that he returned to honor a friend's sacrifice. Seeing the approaching storm, he decided it would be best to head back soon. His patchwork family respected his need for space, but worried if he grew too distant. _For good reason. I didn't do a good job of taking care of myself back then._

A few years ago, he was like this all the time, running away from his family to brood. Thankfully, the healing powers of time, closure, and firm friends had more or less allowed him to readjust. He still had nightmares and regrets—he always would—but he wasn't worse off than anyone else who'd been through as much. In fact, all things considered, the blond thought he was doing rather well.

He had found, contrary to what most people believe, that the pain of losing loved ones never leaves completely. It makes itself known in another person's laughter, in the way flowers grow, and it ebbs and flows like the tide. Grief served as a memorial to what he had lost, and as a reminder to cherish everything he still had. _I've done my best to make up for all of my mistakes, to do his legacy justice, but…he was the one who wanted to be a hero. I just wanted the world to keep living._

A sudden ringing drew the man out of his thoughts. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. _Reeve._

"Hello?"

"Cloud." Reeve said. "I know you're not very fond of phone calls, I so I'll keep this short. Tifa told me you were making some deliveries by chocobo around Wutai earlier this week. Did you happen to ride near the cave east of the coast? The one where we found the mime materia?"

Cloud had taken Terra to Wutai last week for some time-sensitive deliveries, but just to the mainland. "Not really anyone by there to make deliveries to, so no. Did something happen?" he asked.

"…Yes, but it's not important if you're busy right now." Reeve's words were nonchalant, but his tone was strained. _He would have called Tifa if it really wasn't important._

"No, I want to hear it," Cloud replied. "I, uh, appreciate the conversation right now."

The man on the phone paused for a moment, presumably to gather his thoughts. Although Reeve was something of a world leader now, he still had the occasional trouble communicating effectively. Cloud could relate. "Well, I've been working on a personal project lately. A more advanced model of Cait Sith. I sent him out towards that unoccupied part of Wutai to test his recon programs, and…actually found something. That cave now has a functional computer system, set up like some sort of laboratory. If I'm not mistaken, there also appeared to be some sort of holographic device, as well as some other machinery I didn't recognize."

"Machinery you didn't recognize?" Cloud was impressed. Reeve was an engineer by trade and, considering he designed Midgar itself, anything mechanical should have been right up his alley. "Do you have any idea who could have built it, or at least be running it?"

"That's the problem," Reeve said. "Cait was getting a pretty good look around, and had started looking in the computer's database, but there was a sudden…termination of his operating system. The last thing I got from the cameras before losing the connection was a shot of someone Cait had not detected wearing black, and then static."

"That's…interesting, to say the least. That someone must have been pretty fast to sneak up on Cait. Faster than a normal person, anyway. Do you think…this has anything to do with Deepground?"

"I doubt it." Reeve sounded fairly certain, although Cloud had never been very good at reading people. "Vincent wrapped up that matter pretty nicely. What's most concerning about this situation is the location of the cave. Rare materia doesn't just randomly appear in caves; it forms over a long period of time from the natural mako present. The Lifestream doesn't come close to the surface there like in the Northern Crater or Mideel, but there's still a strong connection that isn't fully understood."

Cloud wasn't sure he liked where this was going. "So you're suggesting—"

"That whoever destroyed Cait Sith is experimenting with mako? Yeah," Reeve confirmed. "It's obviously not the only reason someone could be running a secret lab there, but it's the first that comes to mind. And our attacker definitely wasn't a part of Deepground, or Cait would have recognized them. The only other group of people we know of with that much mako enhancement is—"

"—SOLDIER," Cloud finished.

After a long silence, the blond took a deep breath. "And they're all gone." _Myself not included._

"I know this sounds pretty bad," Reeve continued, "but I'm not suggesting it's your lab or anything, Cloud. We all trust you over here at the WRO, and frankly, we know you wouldn't be reckless enough to start experimenting with mako after everything you've been through."

"So what do you think is happening, then?" Cloud asked, as the wind started to pick up, bringing the scent of an approaching storm with it.

"Honestly? I don't know." There was a note of frustration in the other man's voice that was not lost on the blond. "Everyone who was involved with SOLDIER is dead, officially at least. Old man ShinRa was not above declaring a missing officer dead if they defected or 'disappeared' as was the case back in Nibelheim, but all of them were accounted for as of a few months ago. This person was definitely stealthier than most of them were, but they still needed to possess superhuman speed to surprise Cait, as well as a level of skill that only comes with experience. It's like they just…came out of nowhere."

Cloud breath hitched for a moment, remembering something he'd once said to Tifa. _I couldn't finish 'em. This is gonna get complicated_. That had been the understatement of the century. The whole planet had been in grave danger, and they'd gone through hell and back to save it. "Do you want me to go check it out?"

"…No. Whoever is behind this…we don't know what their motives are or what they're trying to accomplish. We don't even know if the attacker is the person responsible, or just a victim. You showing up could escalate things prematurely. I'll fill in Yuffie, see what I can do to investigate the cave again, and let you know as soon as I get more information." Another pause. "And Cloud?"

"Hmm?"

"I know you'll want to jump to conclusions about this, but I'll say it again—this isn't anything like we've dealt with before. There's no reason for us to believe that old enemies are making an appearance, if you catch my meaning."

"…Thanks," Cloud said gratefully. As childish as

it was, the verbal reassurance that their mystery attacker was probably not Sephiroth or Jenova was comforting. "I'm gonna go head back to the bar to help out Tifa for the night. You take care, Reeve."

"Talk to you later, Cloud."

And that was it. Some of the tension he'd been feeling before had went away, strange as it was. It was a weird feeling, and one he knew many of his friends wouldn't understand, but he never felt quite right anymore unless he was fighting, or working on solving a problem like this one. That's why he'd started his delivery service—having to fight monsters on a regular basis helped him maintain his sanity. Too long on the battlefield, or too many things lost. _Best to get back before I start thinking about that too much again._

Cloud made his way over to Fenrir and drove back to Seventh Heaven with the storm close behind.

Within a bar in Edge, a dark-haired, pensive woman was polishing mugs.

The now-stormy afternoon had been a largely normal one for Tifa Lockhart. She had slept in later than the kids, with it being Saturday and the bar being open later than usual the night before. She had done her normal workout (sparring with Cloud was her usual way of relieving stress), and then had gone outside to garden. The flowers, although not thriving, were still _alive_ , and that made Marlene happy enough that Tifa would keep trying.

They were yellow, and of the same variety that Aerith used to grow in the Sector 5 church, which was a large part of the reason why Marlene was so keen on taking care of them. The young girl missed Aerith just as much as the rest of them, and the pain of her loss had only dulled so much after three years. Tifa would do whatever she could to ensure the kids could grow up happy—or as happy as possible, given the world-changing events that had already happened in their lives.

 _I need to stop worrying so much,_ Tifa thought. _They're good kids, and they're growing up strong._ She couldn't help but worry, though, as she polished the glassware before the bar opened for the evening. It was tedious work, and would get boring to the action-oriented woman very quickly if she didn't find something to think about.

Like Cloud, for instance. The brunette had noticed him becoming more withdrawn again lately, and while it was still normal for him to go off to brood every so often, she suspected it was getting close to the anniversary of Zack's death. He'd never told Tifa the exact date, and she had a feeling he didn't know anyway. But she wanted to be there for him if he needed it.

Zack….there was a long period of time in which he was the most important person in Cloud's life. Just from the few days Tifa saw them together in Nibelheim, she could see that Zack balanced Cloud out in a way she and the rest of AVALANCHE never could. And after dying for him...her best friend had only really opened up about it once, but Tifa knew he felt like he owed the dead man everything, and that he felt somehow responsible for what happened. She could understand the feeling—after all, she and the others felt pretty much the same way about Aerith.

It had taken her more than two years after Meteor for her to get Cloud to open up to the rest of their friends about Zack. "It'll be therapeutic," Tifa had said as everyone gathered at the bar to celebrate the end of the Deepground business some months ago. She would know, being the one who had to piece Cloud's broken mind back together in Mideel. "I know it's hard, but talking about it will help. You need to get this off your chest so you can start to heal, Cloud. We all care about you so much."

And after some coaxing and quite a bit of alcohol, he did open up. He told them first about how more of his memories from his ShinRa days came back as time went on—that he would see or hear or smell something and be instantly reminded of something Zack had done that he'd thought he'd forgotten forever. Slowly, and with much silence in between words, Cloud told them about how the raven-haired man did everything he could to encourage him and make him feel included, even as the men in Cloud's squad ignored him or talked down to him. He told them how Zack could always cheer him up, and how his own presence always seemed to be enough to make the other man happy.

That, is, until Nibelheim. Cloud, for the first time, gave all of AVALANCHE the full and truthful account of what had happened in the reactor. He understandably glossed over the labs, but gave as detailed of an account of their escape from the labs as he could manage, stopping right at the ambush on the cliff.

Barret had been the most supportive of them all that evening. What Cloud managed to get out about Zack's death before losing the battle with tears reminded the older man a lot of his history with Dyne, and he did his best to assure the blond that he couldn't have done anything more to save him.

Cloud had looked down at his hands, and admitted that he felt like a proper traitor for what had happened afterwards. His sentences became a lot more fragmented, whether from the alcohol or the sorrow, as he talked about the period of time between Zack's death and the summoning of Meteor.

"'I won't forget,' I told him. And…then I went and did just that," Cloud had finished, in a tone so full of self-loathing that it broke Tifa's heart.

Everyone had told him that Zack would be proud, if he was here. That Cloud was the best living legacy anyone could have asked for.

Once their friends had said goodbye, Cloud had just sat with Tifa for a while, crying softly into her shoulder. She had just held him close until he fell asleep, used to being his rock. In the morning, he'd thanked her, and admitted that while talking about Zack had been painful, and even though he would probably never be able to fully move on, the fact that it wasn't all bottled up inside any more lifted a heavy weight off his chest.

And so Cloud had slowly started to get better, and started to let his broken heart heal.

A warm, calloused hand on her shoulder and the scent of rain brought Tifa back to the present. She turned around to find Cloud standing there with an amused look in his big blue eyes.

"You were spacing out, Teef. I thought that was my job," he said with a small smile.

 _Glad to see that he's not feeling too down._ "Well, it's hard not to space out with all of these mugs to polish and no one to polish them with," she said teasingly, tossing a clean rag at him. "What kept you?"

"A phone call from Reeve, actually," he replied, getting to work on the glasses. "Something happened that he thought I should know about."

He recounted the conversation to Tifa, who tried her best to act nonchalant. It concerned her more than she would like to admit, but it was important for her to stay optimistic about the situation so that Cloud could do the same.

"Honestly," she said, trying to keep it from sounding forced, "if I were running a secret mako lab and a crown-wearing cat with a megaphone showed up, I'd probably destroy it too."

The blond laughed briefly at that, a beautiful sound Tifa had been hearing more and more often lately. "When you put it that way, I guess it's probably not much to worry about, at least not yet. Reeve will figure out what's going on over there, and if the mystery attacker is a threat, he'll call in a favor from Rufus and get the Turks involved."

Tifa was glad that he was staying positive about the situation, but she couldn't help but remind herself of all the ways similar situations had gone wrong before. It sounded an awful lot as though someone involved in SOLDIER other than Cloud had managed to survive, and that had never brought anything but trouble.

"That's not fair!" Denzel whine-shouted from the end of the table. "You can't give it such high numbers!"

"And why not?" Marlene shot back. "Your cards all have high numbers too."

A week had passed since Reeve's phone call, with no updates. They had all had gone back to their usual routines, and the kids were, as far as Cloud could tell, working on something for class.

"What are you two arguing about now?" he asked, pulling up a chair between them to join the conversation.

"Marlene thinks it's fair for her cards to have higher numbers than mine," Denzel said, in the manner every tattle-tale child uses when talking to an adult.

"That doesn't mean much without some sort of explanation. What are the cards for?"

"There's a contest going on at school," Marlene said cheerfully. "Whoever can make the coolest game by the end of the month—"

"—Is gonna win a prize," Denzel finished. "The top three teams are all getting big bags of candy!"

"Big bags of candy are truly a noble cause," Cloud said with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Do you want to call in reinforcements?"

"Come on now, we'll be spoiling them!" called Tifa from behind the bar, where she was taking inventory of the liquor before her monthly order.

"Tiiffaaa," Marlene whined. "The teachers never said anything about having to finish the games by ourselves! Pleeease help us!"

"We're calling it 'Triple Triad' for now," Denzel continued, all business now that the adults were involved. "The basic idea is that each player has a deck of cards with a number on each side. The two players take turns placing cards down on a three by three grid—"

"—That's why we're calling it 'Triple Triad'— " Marlene chimed in.

"—with the goal of turning over all the opponent's cards," Denzel finished.

Tifa stopped her inventory for the moment and walked over to join the conversation. "So the cards get turned over based on the numbers on their sides?" she asked, resting her elbow on Cloud's shoulder. "Like, the higher number beats the lower number or something like that."

"Exactly," Marlene confirmed. "We just can't agree on what numbers each card should have on them, so the game can be, uh…"

"…balanced?" Cloud finished.

"Yeah, balanced," she agreed.

"Well," Tifa said, "it wouldn't be a fun game if some of the cards had really high numbers on all sides, right? So try giving each card a strong side and a weak side, so that the players have to be careful about which cards they're putting down, when."

The kids looked very enlightened at that idea. _It's a good idea, too._

"Then it would be more like a strategy game than a luck game!" Denzel said. "Tifa, that's a really great idea. We'll totally blow the judges away with that one!"

"One other thing," Cloud said, having an idea of his own. "Right now the cards are all just plain. The judges, and the other kids, too, will think the game is way cooler if you add some sort of artistic element to it."

"What, like drawing wolves all over them?" Denzel asked with a shit-eating grin.

Tifa gave a sharp, clear laugh at that, and Cloud brought his hands to his heart in a gesture of mock offense. "Odin, no," he replied. "I mean, you could have one card have a wolf on it or something. But if each card has a different set of numbers on it, you could draw a different picture on each one." He picked up a card with medium-high numbers on it. "Take this lovely card, for example. It could be the Marlene card."

The young girl grinned cheekily at Denzel. "I like this idea," she said. "We could have a Marlene card, and a Denzel card—"

"—and a Tifa card, and a Barret card—"

Just then, Tifa's phone started to ring. "You guys have fun finishing your game, alright?" she said, before walking upstairs to answer the call.

Cloud watched the kids start drawing pictures on their cards for a minute or so before Tifa called down to him. "It's Reeve again."

He followed her back upstairs to their office, where she put the phone on speaker. "What's up, Reeve?" she asked.

"The situation with the lab has escalated somewhat," Reeve said. "It's still not a major concern for you guys as far as I can tell, but I thought you'd want to be in the loop."

"We appreciate it," Cloud said. "So what's changed?" _Hopefully it's not too bad._

"I don't really want to discuss it over the phone, if that's alright with you. Yuffie and I are stopping by Edge later tonight, and we can talk over dinner."

"That works. I'll close the bar for the night," Tifa decided. "We'll see you later."

"Until tonight, then." Reeve said, hanging up.

"What could have changed that made him uncomfortable with discussing it over the phone?" she wondered aloud.

"Rufus still has control over the PHS networks. Whatever's changed, it's probably something Reeve doesn't want him to know about just yet," Cloud said. "We'll find out later though, right?"

Several hours later found the two of them seated at one of the bar's many tables with Reeve and Yuffie. They had eaten dinner without much conversation (Tifa's cooking was truly something to be admired) and were now nursing drinks.

"Let's cut to the chase," Cloud started. "What happened that's so unusual that it has to be kept out of Rufus's line of sight?"

"…There's two parts to this," Reeve anwered. "And I'm not sure which part is more concerning. First of all, I managed to get another Cait into the lab and investigate without running into the same trouble as last time."

"What'd you find?" Tifa asked, after taking a few sips of her beer.

"Well, it would seem that the computer system has actually been there for quite a while," Reeve said with a sigh. "That holographic system I mentioned? It's actually there to turn the whole console invisible, by projecting the walls to be much closer to the center of the cave. So the lab was probably there even while we were looking for that rare materia years ago, but we didn't notice it because we didn't have much reason to go probing the walls."

"So someone's been running a secret lab for a few years now," Cloud said. "But you must have found something more interesting in there, if it warranted not letting Rufus know about it."

"Yes," Reeve confirmed. "There was, as we probably should have expected, a mako tank in the cave. But it's an unusual tank in that it's operated from the inside."

 _What kind of person voluntarily sticks themselves in a mako tank?_ "That's…different. So our mystery attacker is enhanced, but they've been experimenting on themselves, or something to that effect," Cloud said _._ "Anything else?"

"I had Cait check through the computer's files—most of them were encrypted, which I'd expected. Surprisingly, they were _so heavily_ encrypted that I couldn't understand them. It was almost as if they were written to run on something that's not a traditional computer, or at least not one with any configuration I'm familiar with."

Reeve stroked his goatee for a moment before continuing. "There were only a few files on the computer I could actually _read_ , and they were very fascinating, to say the least. The most frequently used program was one that just…read messages to the user. They weren't even standard messages. Like "go to sleep now," and "forget about it," and the sorts of things that people usually just think to themselves. It seemed to be a completely benign program, too. It didn't have any effect on Cait, or on me looking through the camera."

"That's not all though, is it?" Tifa asked hesitantly, noting the slightly apprehensive look on Reeve's face.

"Unfortunately, it's not. The other program I could get my hands on was nothing more than a list, but it was a list of some very high-profile individuals, both living and dead. Yuffie's mother was on the list, as well as Vincent, Rufus ShinRa, Aerith, Ifalna Faremis, Genesis Rhapsodos…and, well…you, Cloud."

The blond had been on too many people's lists to be properly shocked by one more. "Genesis…he had something to do with the Crisis, right?"

The other man looked a bit surprised at Cloud's question. "You…don't remember him? He was one of ShinRa's top generals in your infantry days, alongside Angeal Hewley and Sephiroth. He defected towards the end of the Wutai war and caused us a lot of trouble for a few years. He fell at Modeoheim."

At the mention of Modeoheim, Cloud started to feel a bit dizzy, as forgotten memories resurfaced. "…I remember now. That's where I met Zack," he said, struggling to keep his voice even with the emotions that always came with old memories. "We were the only two in the group who didn't have trouble navigating the mountain terrain…I felt pretty smug about being able to keep up with a SOLDIER. He—" Cloud abruptly stopped, before he said something embarrassing or got too far off topic.

"…Do you need a minute?" Yuffie asked knowingly. She'd seen him have these sorts of episodes more than once. They all had.

"…No, I think I'm fine," he answered sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. _Stay in the present, Cloud. Sort through this later._ "Zack fought Genesis in the reactor there and…he fell. I've seen that happen often enough to know how it ended. So, we've got a list. What I don't understand is the common factor between all these people."

"It can't be a list of ShinRa's genetic experiments, or else some…other names would be on there too," Tifa theorized. "You don't think it could just be a short list of people with near-death experiences?"

"Some of them had full-death experiences," Cloud replied bitterly, "but hell, I suppose Vincent, Rufus and I have all cheated death before."

"…I admit that I have no idea what the common element is, either," Reeve said, "but Yuffie's side of the story might account for some of the confusion."

"Let's hear it, then," Tifa said, entwining her fingers with Cloud's under the table and squeezing his hand reassuringly.

Earlier in the week, while Reeve was using Cait Sith to break into the mysterious lab again, Yuffie was chasing an incredibly agile thief from one of Leviathan's shrines.

She'd been standing outside a good distance away, training a group of kids in some shuriken techniques—no throws yet, just basic strikes to work on form. _Good practice for when you take over from me_ , her father had said with a hearty chuckle. The weather had been sunny and fair, especially for this time of year— _perfect_ for outdoor practicing. Yuffie was throwing her heart into the teaching, telling the kids (her students!) exciting tales of her materia-hunting days while they practiced line drills. She was just getting to the time she stole all of AVALANCHE's materia when she heard the door to the shrine close.

No one was supposed to be in there at this time of day, so the petite woman held a finger to her lips, gestured for the children to keep practicing without her, and tiptoed over to the door, pressing her eye against the keyhole.

She saw a rather tall man in an all-black ensemble that reminded her a bit of what the SOLDIERs who invaded Wutai used to wear. Something about his posture reminded her of them, too. His dark hair was wild and long enough in the back that she could probably braid it. _Stop thinking about braids and pay attention to what he's doing_ , Yuffie scolded herself. Sneaky men in her shrine were serious business, and deserved no less than her full attention.

The mystery man was inspecting all of the urns around the shrine, the ones that contained the ashes of passed Kisaragis. It was all the passionate young woman could do to not barge in and yell at the man to knock it off. He honed in on a forest-green urn with a white rose painted on its side. _Those are my mother's ashes, you bastard!_ The man picked up the urn and turned around for a moment, but didn't move.

Now Yuffie could get a better look at him. He had two blades, perhaps katanas, kept in a swordbelt at his side. He was wearing a black mask that covered the lower half of his face, and his hair looked a lot tamer from the front, although there was a single strand that dangled in front of his right eye.

Speaking of which, he definitely had mako eyes. They had the same bright yet haunted look Cloud's still got sometimes, and something about them seemed even more familiar to Yuffie than the strange uniform or the man's posture did, although she couldn't place it. _But how could there be anyone left with mako enhancement?_ Between Deepground and everything else, all of them were either dead or otherwise accounted for. _Who is he?_

Just as Yuffie was realizing the full gravity of the situation, the man started moving towards the door. _I am NOT letting him get away with her ashes!_ In a rash and split-second decision, she opened the door, slipped in, and shut it before he could get there.

Yuffie was unarmed, having been teaching the shuriken class empty-handed, so she would have to rely on her evasion skills to get her out of this situation. She took up a fighting stance and prepared to defend herself.

The strange man could apparently rival her for spontaneity, however, because he suddenly cut sideways and broke clean through the wall of the shrine. _If I hadn't thought he was enhanced before, I sure would now._

Yuffie leapt after him. Her students and some of the nearby pedestrians turned to watch the chase, but none of them moved. They'd seen their princess involved in this sort of thing too many times to think anything of it, even if she was usually the one being pursued. The man ( _an ex-SOLDIER_?) was cutting through the streets, running towards the path that led to Da-Chao's statue. Why he thought going up was a good means of escape Yuffie didn't know, but she sprinted after him, determined to get that urn back.

The man could probably run at a superhuman speed, but the fragility of the urn slowed him down, and Yuffie was pretty fast herself. She tailed him all the way to the top of the statue, where the lecher Don Corneo had held her and the Turk Elena hostage all those years ago.

"Nowhere to run, SOLDIER boy," the ninja said threateningly, putting her hands on her hips. _He might have those blades, but he needs to be careful since he obviously wants to keep that urn. And I can still fight empty-handed._

At the mention of "SOLDIER," several different emotions became evident in the man's eyes. Anger, sorrow, determination…but ultimately, his expression became one of confusion and unrecognition. He began shaking where he stood, which both surprised the young woman a great deal and reminded her of the way Cloud had acted while he was unknowingly fighting mako poisoning.

Yuffie had no idea how to handle the situation. Tifa and Aerith had been the ones to bring Cloud back to reality when this happened, but she didn't even think she _knew_ this man. Was he having a flashback of some sort? Was he dissociating? Was she overthinking this, and he was just chickening out of his thieving operation?

But before Yuffie could come to any meaningful conclusion, the mystery man pulled himself together, threw the urn at her, and full-on _dived_ down the side of the mountain. She caught her mother's ashes easily and watched him descend, impressed at how he managed it without getting visibly injured. After some thought, she decided it would probably be best to call Reeve first.

Author's notes:

So..this is my first time writing fanfiction (and my first time doing creative writing in like...eight years). If you read this, and had literally any thoughts on it, please comment them! I have no idea what I'm doing yet and would really appreciate any feedback.

As for the story/characterization, I'm gonna try to stick to my own interpretation of their canon personalities-mostly from the original game, Advent Children, and Crisis Core, because I've never had a chance to play Dirge (so if I really screw something up with that please let me know). I have a general idea of where I want the story to go, but I don't have anything in detail planned out yet beyond, like...Chapter 5.

Chapter 2 is gonna deal with Cloud and Tifa's relationship, more of his feelings on Zack, and then the plot is gonna pick up again. I'm almost done editing it, so I should be uploading it in the next couple of days.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: New Developments**

Regardless of what he said about being fine earlier, Yuffie could tell Cloud was still a bit shaken from whatever he'd just remembered, so she figured it would be best to tell them just the action-based parts of what had happened. _He wasn't ever actually_ in _SOLDIER, so he probably wouldn't know the guy, but…his physical description might set something off again._

"So I called Reeve, and he told me that it would be pretty stupid to not conclude that my mystery-man is the same person as your mystery-man," Yuffie concluded after relating the gist of her story. "...I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting a really bad vibe about his little operation."

Tifa snorted, and the younger woman's brown eyes narrowed into a glare. " _What_ is funny about this?!" she asked.

The barmaid waved off Yuffie's stink-eye and cleared her throat. "It's just…let's call him something other 'mystery-man.' I'm gonna have a hard time taking a new threat seriously if his nickname sounds like something out of one of Denzel's comic books."

"We could call him the winter SOLDIER," Cloud offered, in the simple manner one would debate dinner options.

Everyone at the table shot him an amused and exasperated look.

"What? It's winter in Wutai right now, and the guy probably had something to do with SOLDIER," Cloud explained. In a smaller voice, he added, "It makes sense."

Tifa poked him in the ribs, making him jump. "It still sounds like the name of a comic book character…" she said teasingly, "but it does makes sense, and it sounds a lot cooler than 'mystery-man.'"

Yuffie raised her hands in a gesture of defeat, and Reeve chuckled. "The Winter SOLDIER it is, then," he said. "But back to business. Our man of interest attempted to steal the ashes of a Wutai royal. I don't understand…what's he trying to do? What's the purpose of the list?"

"It's a list of targets," Cloud said unceremoniously. "Yuffie's mom was the first on this list, right? So he's gonna go down the list, and attempt to do…something with each target."

Yuffie momentarily admired how positively _unfazed_ Cloud and Tifa seemed, before remembering that they probably should be, after all they'd been through together. It's not like they'd gotten a notice in the mail before their hometown was burned down, or for anything that had happened since then. This probably seemed like nothing to them.

"So the Winter SOLDIER will go after Vincent next, then, assuming the order means anything," Cloud said. "Has anyone seen him recently?"

No one had.

"Let's take a quick break and call Barret, Cid, and Nanaki," Yuffie suggested, refusing to give up on contacting their missing friend just yet. "Maybe one of them has seen him."

It only took a few minutes to find that none of them had, either. The four of them sat in near silence for a few minutes after putting down the phone, the only sounds being Reeve's fingers tapping on the table and Tifa cracking her knuckles.

"Hold on a minute," Tifa said, with a thoughtful look on her face. "Vincent asked me about buying a cell phone about a year ago. Yuffie, did he ever actually get one?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Well…crap."

"I'm not too worried about Vincent," Cloud said, leaning back in the booth. "He can handle himself, not to mention that he's kind of…immortal. And Yuffie, the Winter SOLDIER threw that urn back at you when you tried to fight, right?"

"Yeah…" she confirmed. "So…?"

"…so he's probably aiming to collect his targets, not eliminate them," Cloud finished, shrugging the same way he used to back in their ShinRa-fighting days. "He would have fought you by the statue if he didn't care about that urn staying intact. Hell, if he wanted it destroyed, he could have just dropped it down the side of the cliff."

 _Sometimes I forget how smart he really is,_ Yuffie thought. _It's a crime he lost so many years to ShinRa._

"Let me get this straight," Tifa said, folding her hands on the table. "So the Winter SOLDIER is going to attempt to…capture, I guess, everyone on this list? Vincent will be next, and then Rufus. Who was after that?"

Reeve took a look at the list again and furrowed his brows before answering. "Aerith, then Ifalna, then Genesis," he answered. "The obvious problem is…none of them have bodily remains, at least not in any known location."

Cloud rubbed the back of his neck, in the same way that always prickled at the back of Yuffie's memory. "Well…if I were him…I would probably skip those targets," he said. "Assuming he knows anything about how the three of them died, he'd know that there's nothing left of them. So he'll probably come for me after Rufus."

He still looked unfazed, but she noticed Tifa squeeze his hand from under the table.

"What should we do?" the older woman asked. "I don't want you to have to fight him, Cloud. There's gotta be a less confrontational way to go about this."

Yuffie sat up a little straighter. "If we have to fight him, we'll do it together," she said firmly. "We're here for you, Cloud."

The blond gave them a small smile. "Thanks, guys," he said, "but I don't think I'll need to fight him. Remember what I said last week, Teef?"

"Yeah," she said, pausing for a moment. "Reeve, I think you should fill in Rufus…since he's probably the next target. See if the Turks can take him down, since they definitely owe us."

Reeve nodded. "I was about to suggest that myself," he said. "I'll call him tomorrow morning and get the Turks in the loop, and we'll see where this leads."

In the dead of night, Cloud lay awake in bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to keep himself from thinking about the Winter SOLDIER. He stretched his legs out, but they poked out from under the sheets and his feet met cool air. The bed really was too small for him, but their room wasn't big enough for more than two twins.

 _Why don't you two just share a bed?_ Their friends (mostly Cid) had asked them this on occasion, which always made Cloud stutter and turn an embarrassing shade of pink. Eventually, Tifa had needed to explain that they weren't as _involved_ as the rest of AVALANCHE seemed to think they were. They'd told the kids a slightly abridged version of the story, too, even though they seemed to understand without being told.

It wasn't that Cloud didn't love Tifa. She was one of the most important people in the world to him, and he loved her with all his heart. He was grateful for the life they'd built together, even if it wasn't what he'd imagined as a kid. Things just hadn't worked out the way they thought they would.

 _Words aren't the only way to tell someone how you feel,_ Tifa had said that night under the Highwind. Cloud remembered how awkward and flustered they had been, especially with how complicated things had gotten. She'd fumbled through a confession of her feelings, and he…well, words had never been his strong suit. They hadn't had sex or anything—in fact, all they did was kiss for a bit and fall asleep next to each other. Waking up with Tifa's beautiful head on his shoulder had been a dream come true, and Cloud had realized with a pang of both regret and, strangely enough, relief that he didn't want anything more.

He'd told her as much after waking her. To his surprise, she felt the same way about him. They didn't click physically in the way that they thought couples were supposed to, and while Cloud hadn't had enough of his old memories back at the time to know if this was a unique scenario or not, Tifa did. She told him she was glad he didn't want to go farther, because she was asexual.

Cloud had never heard the term before, so she explained that it just meant she didn't feel sexual attraction towards other people. Cloud had processed this for a moment, lips pursed in concentration, and then asked her if maybe he was, too. Tifa had given him a knowing (and somewhat mysterious) grin and told him that he'd have to decide that for himself, and that with everything his mind had been through, maybe his body just wasn't ready for something like that yet.

Time had passed, and the romantic tension between them subsided as well. They decided sleeping in separate beds would be better (with Tifa's late schedule and Cloud's habit of tossing and turning), but they still presented themselves as a couple. And while he would still say he was in love with Tifa, it was a purely platonic love. And she felt the same way.

As far as his sexuality went, Cloud had stopped trying to define it a while ago. The first year or so after Meteor, he'd wake up in the morning expecting some magical return of his sex drive, and it just…hadn't happened. He'd found that he c _ould_ get himself off if he tried, but he never felt the need, so he didn't really do it anymore. And romantic attraction hadn't made a reappearance either.

But it was all fine and good, because he had a family and friends who loved him and cared about him, and that's all he really needed.

The old memories that had resurfaced earlier that evening threw a bit of a wrench into that understanding of himself, though. _Modeoheim_ …Cloud wondered how he hadn't remembered it until now.

He remembered being assigned to work with a SOLDIER, and upon meeting him, thinking immediately: _Wow, he's good-looking._ And he'd spent the rest of the mission trying to act natural and generally failing. Cloud felt a blush creep across his cheeks in the dark as he remembered lying on the ground after Angeal came through. Zack had offered to help him up, and he had refused in an effort to show off his super slick infantryman skills. Cloud had started to get up—and then fell right back on his butt again. _Is it normal to feel secondhand embarrassment at a memory?_

If his other memories of Zack were anything to go by, whatever sort of initial attraction Cloud experienced had faded over time, like with Tifa. Most of his other happy memories of Zack didn't have the same feeling of…whatever that was attached to them. But maybe those weren't even complete memories. Hell, his brain was a weird place. Tifa could testify, she'd _been_ in it (which she reminded him of whenever he got too distant).

 _Maybe I just can't recognize romantic attraction when I'm feeling it…Aerith would be able to help. She'd always been better at that sort of thing than even Tifa._ Gradually, his thoughts started going in circles, and he fell asleep, dreaming of friends.

Over the next few days, Tifa noticed that Cloud seemed even more contemplative than usual, which was saying something. He'd been late home from a delivery on Tuesday, two days after their meeting with Reeve and Yuffie, and when she'd inquired, he said he'd run out of fuel a few miles back and had to walk Fenrir the rest of the way. That had never happened before.

During their usual sparring match Wednesday morning, Tifa managed to _literally_ kick Cloud's butt while he wasn't paying attention. He rubbed at the spot and gave her a hurt look.

 _He's really out of it._ "I want to know what's got you all in a funk. Don't give me that look, you've clearly got something on your mind. Is it the winter SOLDIER? Cause I got a call from Reno last night while you were out, saying that they were on round-the-clock duty and that Rufus should be fine. There's nothing to worry about."

Cloud looked briefly surprised, and then rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish expression. "It's…actually not that at all."

"Hmm?" Tifa raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"Well…I…it's about Zack."

 _What?_ That was not what she'd been expecting him to say, based on his behavior. _He doesn't seem to be feeling sad or guilty, just…confused._ "This is about what you remembered from Modeoheim, isn't it...do you wanna talk about it?"

Cloud looked conflicted for a moment, but then said "…Okay."

 _He's getting a lot better about these sorts of things._ Tifa's face lit up as she took off her sparring gloves. "Well…you know my usual routine. If you want to talk about it, you're gonna help me tend to the flowers."

He just nodded and followed her to the garden.

The work took less time than usual, with Cloud helping. Despite being a warrior by occupation, he was surprisingly good with plants. And with kids. And with machines. Really, she didn't know why her best friend was usually so down on himself. A few minutes later, Tifa had brewed some tea (that Cid had sent them for her last birthday) and brought two barstools outside.

"So what's up?" she started.

Cloud sat there holding his tea for a solid minute, trying to put the words together. "…Modeoheim was where I met Zack for the first time, and I didn't even remember it until last weekend. And there was something…different about it from the other memories I have of him."

Tifa noticed the ( _embarrassed?_ ) look on his face and waited for him to keep going.

The blond continued after a moment, his voice a few notes higher than usual. "I definitely remember trying to impress him…and feeling embarrassed about it. And…something else, too. But…none of my other memories of him are like this. I'm so confused, Tifa," he said, giving her a look that reminded her way too much of a lost puppy.

She couldn't help but grin, feeling like she knew _exactly_ what sort of thing Cloud was remembering.

The blond wiped the pleading look off his face and scoffed at her. "What, does my confusion make you happy?"

Tifa laughed briefly, nut with enough enthusiasm that a little of her tea sloshed out of the cup and onto the dirt. "No…it's just, I think I know what you're trying to get at," she said with a sly grin. "You _liked_ him."

Cloud's jaw actually dropped, which told her she'd hit the nail right on its spiky head. "I did _not_!" he exclaimed. "…Okay, maybe I did," he added. "I don't know. That's why I'm trying to talk to you about it."

"Alright, then tell me about it, goofball," Tifa said, schooling her face into a more serious, or at least less amused expression.

"Um…well…I remember pretty clearly thinking 'damn, he's hot' or something like that as soon as I saw him," Cloud said quickly, blush deepening. "And I totally spent most of the mission trying to make him think I was cool. It was…ridiculously validating to hear him say 'good job' when I restrained Hollander…"

He sounded just like a teenager again. Tifa loved it.

"…and then I got really motion-sick on the way to Junon, and—oh Gaia," he stopped, his eyes widening like saucers. "I think Zack asked me out after that."

Her expression broke out into a grin again of its own accord. "He did?"

"Yeah…he asked me to go grab a bite to eat with him, and I said yes right away like an idiot," Cloud said, hiding his face in his hands. "It was probably so obvious, wasn't it?"

"That you totally had a crush on him?" _I knew it!_

Cloud looked up, his eyes full of mortification. He groaned and set his tea down on the ground before he could spill any more of it. "…I did, didn't I? Oh Gaia—"

Tifa put her hand on his shoulder before he could start rambling again. "Cloud, let me tell you something," she said, moving her chair so she was closer to him. "It's _okay_. It's completely, 100% okay that you had a crush on your best friend. It's normal. It happens to a lot of people. It happened to me. And if it makes you challenge your perceptions of yourself, that's okay too," she said. "And…I should say I haven't been completely honest with you about something."

The mortification in Cloud's eyes changed to surprise and curiosity. "…what?" he asked. "I thought…"

"It's nothing major," the brunette clarified. "It hasn't really come up in conversation for years, and I didn't want to bring it up before because it was right after you started getting your old memories back."

Cloud looked back up from his hands, ready to listen. Tifa continued.

"Aerith told me some stuff about Zack after we met his parents in Gongaga," she started. "She made him sound like the type of person who wasn't very good at subtlety…I think you would have had to be incredibly forward about your feelings in order for him to catch on." She snickered and poked his arm. "And _verbal_ ," she added, causing his blush to deepen further. "Cloud, he was probably completely oblivious to whatever attraction you had to him, so you can go ahead and stop feeling so embarrassed about it."

 _Dilly-dally, shilly-shally. Get to the point, Tifa._ She took a deep breath before continuing. "You know…I knew Zack too. Briefly. I saw you two together on the Nibelheim mission, remember? Cloud…you and him had a connection that was special. Whether it was romantic or not, I don't know, and it doesn't even really matter, to be honest. You cared about each other a lot—you had to, in order to get through what you did. What I'm trying to say is—"

Cloud startled her by pulling her right out of her chair and into a tight hug. Tifa reciprocated, wrapping her arms around his waist and rubbing small circles on his back.

A minute or so later, Cloud spoke into her hair. "I…think I understand now, Tifa. Whatever feelings I had for Zack turned from a crush…into something more like what I feel for you now, and—" she felt his arms shiver around her "—it broke me when he died, because…I loved him. I knew that before…but it feels different now, if that makes sense. I love you so much, Tifa."

Tifa could feel moisture on her scalp, and knew Cloud must be crying. She would too, if she'd just remembered something of that much importance. Tifa pulled away a little bit and wiped the tears off his face before she started tearing up as well.

"I love you too," she said softly, lifting her brown eyes to meet his blue ones. "And you're going to be alright, Cloud."

"…I think I need to change the way I've been thinking about some things," he said, looking back towards the bar. "I've been going around for the past three years making myself feel guilty for my failures, but…that doesn't fix anything, does it? There's so much here and now…you've been there for me through everything, Tifa. And I want to be there for you too. More than I have been."

Cloud took a few shaky breaths before continuing. "And Denzel, and Marlene, and all of our friends. I've been relying on you all to keep me sane for years…and I've never even really tried to return the favor, except to beat things up. I want to change that, Tifa," he said resolutely.

 _I can't believe how oblivious he is sometimes._ She stepped back from the hug and ruffled his hair, making him jump back in surprise. "…why'd you do that?" Cloud asked.

Tifa just shook her head, beaming. "Cloud, you've _already_ been doing all those things. You've been trying so hard to be a good friend to everyone these past months, and you've been doing a great job of it. You're just the only one who's too thick-skulled to see it."

Cloud's face went a little pink again. "…Really?"

"Yes, really!" Tifa confirmed. "You've been like that your whole life, Cloud. We all think you're a wonderful person, even if you get a little broody sometimes. All you need to do is see that for yourself."

They hugged again, and Cloud left to make his deliveries before too much of the day went by.

Reno had been having one hell of a week.

Rufus had called the four of them in for a _mandatory_ meeting on Monday morning. He'd even called Reno specifically, threatening to dock his pay if he decided to skip. _Whatever it is, it better be fuckin' important_ , he'd thought.

And important it was. Rufus had scheduled a call to Reeve Tuesti himself, and it wasn't about money. It was about a hit list.

It wasn't _technically_ a hit list, as the WRO leader clarified several times for whatever reason, but any list of targets might as well have been a hit list in the redhead's mind. Blame the Turk training. Either way, Rufus was a target of some apparently-random mako-enhanced dude. Who Reeve didn't seem to know anything about.

Well, Reno took issue with that statement. He knew from experience and intuition that the chances of this fucker actually being random were very small, and that the last time some lone wolf ex-SOLDIER went around wrecking things, it had resulted in the biggest shitstorm Gaia had ever seen. _So help me, if this has anything to do with gaiadamn Jenova, I am_ out _, yo._

Reeve hadn't given them a physical description of the guy beyond "tall" and "wears dark colors," which was true of pretty much every SOLDIER ever, so it was a decidedly unhelpful piece of information.

Anyhow, Rufus had decided to do his usual dance with danger and _not_ leave Healin. For whatever reason. So Tseng had put the four of them on extra shifts, with three of them guarding their boss at all times. It resulted in some gaiadamn grumpy Turks, since now none of them had gotten a break from work to do anything besides nap in four days.

And worse, while Reno was cast away from his usually carefree existence into a world of boring, incessant guard duty, certain _other_ people seemed to be having a grand old time.

Strife, for instance. The fucker dropped by Thursday morning for his usual deliveries, looking positively _chipper._ Cloud Strife was never chipper, at least not in the several years Reno had known him. "What's making you so happy, yo?" Reno asked. "Get lucky?"

Cloud gave him a predictable glare, but there wasn't any fight behind it. He'd never appreciated having dirty jokes (or any sexual references, actually) made around him, especially at his expense. Which was why Reno made them so often. It was a thing now.

But to his surprise, Cloud actually dropped the glare after a second and _laughed_. An actual laugh. From the moodiest man in no-longer-Midgar.

His eyebrows shot up to what felt like right under his goggles. "Seriously though, why're you in such a cheery mood?"

"…I'm just feeling better than usual," Cloud said plainly.

 _If I didn't know better, I'd be convinced he's gotten laid,_ Reno thought. "It's cause Gaia took your grumpy-ass aura and gave it to me, yo," he replied. "I haven't had a break since Monday morning."

"Guard duty, huh?"

Reno groaned. "I'm bored and exhausted, yo," he said. "Tseng is being real strict about this guard rotation."

"If it makes you feel any less cranky," the blond said, "Tifa's offering free drinks to you four once this mess is cleared up. We…really appreciate your help."

"It's just our jobs, yo. No need to get so sentimental. But I'll take up the offer for drinks once our little Winter SOLDIER shows up," Reno said with a wink. "See you whenever."

"Bye, Reno."

The rest of Thursday and Friday went by without anything eventful occurring. Reno worked, slept. Worked. Took a nap standing up. Was chewed out by Elena (Tseng was off-duty at the time). Worked some more.

Friday night came around. The redhead Turk had on a pair of Rude's sunglasses to help his caffeine headache—he'd had more cups of coffee that day than was probably advisable. He was guarding the lower level of the lodge with Elena, while Tseng was keeping watch over Rufus upstairs.

"You look ridiculous with both the goggles and the sunglasses," Elena observed, with that classic combination of annoyingness and professionalism that irked the redhead to no end.

Reno scoffed. "I can't take off the goggles! They're a part of my _aesthetic_."

"Then take off the sunglasses!"

"But I have a headache, yo!"

They went on teasing each other for another few seconds, until Elena promptly put her hand over his mouth mid-sentence. "Stop," she whispered, "I think he's here."

Reno took off the sunglasses and looked out the window. Sure enough, some sketchy dude was making his way towards the lodge, avoiding the moonlight by sticking to tree cover. He definitely had a SOLDIER's build, and was wearing some sort of black combat uniform. He had a hood up to cover his hair, and a mask and goggles obscured his face.

"Well he's doing a damn good job of keeping himself anonymous, yo," Reno said. "I take back what I said about Reeve's description. I can't come up with anything better."

Elena swore under her breath. "I think he heard you," she whispered. "He just took out some…katanas? What kind of weapons are those?"

Their target had taken two blades out of his belt and was looking, it seemed, directly at them. "Take out your gun, Elena," Reno growled, getting his EMR ready. "He might be looking for a fight."

The man in question approached the wall and tilted his head to one side, as if thinking how to approach. Without warning, he took one of the blades…and drove it square into the side of the building.

"Not really what I was expectin' him to do, yo," Reno whispered. "Oh, fuck…Elena, go upstairs and warn Tseng. He's gonna scale the wall with those things."

The blonde woman nodded and darted upstairs while Reno opened the front door and stepped out into the crisp night air. The man was halfway up the building when the upstairs window opened and Tseng started shooting.

As Reeve had predicted, the man in black chose not to fight. He drew his knees to his chest, gripped his swords, and did a backflip off of the wall, landing in a deep stance. _Shows off as much as any one of those old SOLDIERs_ , Reno thought.

He made a dash for the front door, which Reno was rather conveniently still standing in front of. _Ha…it's stuff like this that makes the job worthwhile, yo_.

The Turk cocked his EMR over his shoulder. "I'm afraid you won't be leaving with Rufus today, or any other day yo," he said with a healthy amount of dramatic flair. "You're in Turks' jurisdiction, slick."

At the word "slick," the mysterious ex-SOLDIER dropped his blades and started…shaking? _The hell?_ Whatever he was doing, it didn't matter, because Elena had joined him at the door.

The blonde Turk held up her gun and pointed it right at Rufus's would-be kidnapper, taking advantage of the moment of weakness. Just as her finger honed in on the trigger, however, their target shot out an arm, grabbed her wrist, and disarmed her, all in in the blink of an eye.

Reno aimed his EMR right at the probably-ex-SOLDIER's neck and struck gold. He let out a pained yell and dropped Elena, who immediately retaliated with an elbow to the mask.

The redhead was back to fighting too, though he couldn't help but be distracted by the man's voice. _I've heard that voice before_ , he thought, as he aimed blow after blow. Some hit, but the man was doing a good job of protecting his neck, and the armor he was wearing on the rest of his body seemed to be shockproof.

Eventually, Reno stopped trying to electrocute the man and started going for one of his blades. The EMR might be ineffective for this fight, but he could work a katana well enough to gain the upper hand.

Elena had backed off a bit and was aiming gunshot after gunshot at the winter SOLDIER. She landed a lot of solid hits, but Reno knew anyone as enhanced as this guy couldn't be taken down by bullets unless there were a hell of a lot more of them—any damage she caused would just get healed by the mako. That reminded him—the former First Class, Fair, who was on the run with Strife all those years ago—it had taken an entire platoon of men with guns to take him down. And this was after he'd already been weakened from being on the run. _Better grab that katana quick, yo._

The man attacking him now was probably much stronger than Fair had been, and fought more fiercely than anyone the Turk had ever been up against, besides Strife. Reno had managed to avoid taking too much damage so far, but he was starting to lose energy, and Tseng hadn't shown up to help yet.

In a brief moment of victory, Reno wrenched the man's left blade out of his hand. _This is too heavy to be a katana. It's more like a…oh no._

At the loss of one of his weapons, their attacker cocked his head to the side for a moment, and Reno would bet all the liquor in Edge that he was going through the same thought process. Elena landed a shot to the attacker's back, and he suddenly leapt back into the action.

Putting both hands on the hilt of the blade as if it was more like a broadsword than a katana, the winter SOLDIER spun away from Reno and struck Elena in the temple with the flat of the blade before the other Turk had any time to react. She crumpled to the ground, whether dead or concussed Reno didn't know and didn't have time to find out.

"TSENG!" he shouted as their attacker turned back around to face him. Reno wouldn't be able to hold off the man for very long like this. He knew how to fight with a katana…but these blades definitely weren't katanas, and the ex-SOLDIER's brute strength and superhuman speed would overcome his own agility very soon.

He had to appreciate Tseng's timing, as ironic as it was, because it was just as the Wutaian was within sight that their attacker struck the flat of his blade to Reno's skull, and everything went black.

Sunday morning, Tifa was making brunch with Marlene. Barret was coming to visit today, and his daughter wanted to help with the cooking.

"Can you get a stick of butter from the fridge?" Tifa asked, breaking eggs over a bowl. They weren't going to make anything fancy. Just a lot of pancakes, and all the spare toppings they could find before Barret arrived in—she glanced at the clock on the opposite wall—twenty minutes.

Marlene set the butter on the counter just as Cloud meandered downstairs, yawning. He was wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, in sharp contrast to his usual outfit.

"Cloud, you look…well, not fancy," Marlene said with a giggle. "But nice."

Both adults giggled as well (although Cloud's was more of an undignified snort), and he pulled up a chair to the bar. "Anything I can do to help?" he asked.

"Wake up Denzel, if you don't mind," Tifa offered. "Barret's due to arrive in less than a half hour, and I want him _at least_ as dressed as you are," she added with a smirk.

"I'll make sure he's wearing the nicest sweatpants he has," Cloud said teasingly before retreating upstairs.

The brunette was in the middle of flipping pancakes a few minutes later when her phone rang from across the room. "Marle, can you get that? It's probably your father."

The girl happily skipped over to the table that was set for their brunch and picked up the phone. She didn't say hello when picking up, though, and her cheerful expression vanished so quickly that Tifa knew whatever it was, it wasn't good.

After a moment, Marlene walked back over and handed the phone to Tifa, expression blank. "Here she is."

"Tifa, something very alarming has happened," said a grave voice. Tseng's voice. They never got calls from Tseng. "I need to get you and Cloud on the phone as soon as possible."

"I'll get him," Tifa said, trying not to sound too worried with one of the kids right there. "Marlene, I'm gonna need you to finish the pancakes, but don't touch the stove with your bare hands, alright?"

She bumped into the boys on the stairs, and the look on her face must have given something away because Cloud grabbed her free hand, told Denzel to go help Marlene, and led her upstairs.

Once safely in their joint office, Tifa put the phone on speaker. "We're here, Tseng," she said. Cloud's eyes widened, his initial reaction mirroring hers.

"The man you dubbed as the winter SOLDIER showed up at Healin Friday night," the Turk started, never one for small talk or pleasantries. "And he's much more dangerous than Reeve had told us he would be. He managed to incapacitate Elena, Reno, and myself in a matter of a few minutes and escaped with Rufus."

Tifa winced involuntarily. This was bad. If he was really _that_ powerful, and it came to a battle with Cloud, it wasn't a sure win. One look at her best friend told her he was thinking somewhere along the same lines.

"What kept you from calling us sooner?" Tifa asked.

"By 'incapacitate,' I meant we were unconscious for more than 24 hours until Rude could revive us, and even then we weren't clear-headed enough to call until just now."

"…Damn," Cloud said. An understatement. "Can you give us details?"

Tseng put Reno on the line, who relayed the story as best as he could—their winter SOLDIER was definitely formerly of ShinRa, and was very competent with two blades that he described as a hybrid between a katana and a broadsword. He wasn't aiming to kill any of the Turks, or they'd all probably be dead, but he did put them out long enough that they had zero clue where he went. To top it off, thanks to the mask, goggles, and hood, their idea of his physical appearance was even less detailed than they had expected.

"…Damn," Tifa said once Tseng was back on, echoing the blond's earlier statement. "I take it you want us to handle it from here."

"If you would be so kind," he confirmed, with a tone more bitter than they were used to hearing from the professional Wutaian. "If Reeve told us correctly, the winter SOLDIER is going to go after you all next anyway. So I would suggest—"

"—beating him to the punch," Cloud finished.

"I'll leave you to it then," Tseng said coldly before hanging up. Tifa would ordinarily be a bit miffed at the Turk's harshness, but she'd be equally unhappy in his situation.

She looked to Cloud, gauging his reaction. He met her gaze and clasped their hands together.

"Teef, I'm fine," he said reassuringly. "We'll call up Cid when Barret gets here, pick up everyone else, and go look for Vincent and Rufus."

"What makes you so confident that this is going to end well?" Tifa felt she was rightfully concerned, if their target was as powerful as Reno and Tseng had made him seem. _I don't want you getting hurt again._

"We've been in so much more dangerous situations than this," he answered patiently. "This guy isn't aiming to kill—he's aiming to capture. And," he added with a smirk, "the eight of us are better warriors than the Turks anyway. Especially since we're familiar with a SOLDIER's combat style."

She couldn't help but acknowledge the truth of that. "I'll call Cid now and get arrangements for a Highwind trip going," she said pragmatically. "You go downstairs and fill Barret in once he gets here."

Getting to work, Tifa couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia along with the expected anxiety. Yes, they were going off to find (and possibly fight) some unknown man who had unknown motives and more power than they'd dealt with in a while—but they were doing it together.

Author's notes:

So that was a trip-for me, at least. I gotta say, Cloud and Tifa's conversation during that second part was a joy to write. I couldn't resist using the Winter Soldier idea, which I believe originated with an anon on holyshit-clack's Tumblr (and I know TheLonelySheWolf is writing a fic on a similar concept, but this is gonna diverge from that very, very soon-I just wanted to borrow the name until the "big reveal").

I changed the title to "A Space to Grow," because song titles are always fair game, right? And I figured it's probably more fitting for the story I want to tell anyway.

Chapter 3 might be a bit longer to upload, because I'm not happy with it yet, and the weekend is over anyway. But it's going to go through the confrontation with the mysterious ex-SOLDIER (whose identity should be super obvious).


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: For the Reunion**

That night, in the Highwind's spacious cockpit, seven friends were gathered for a rescue mission. Cloud looked around, trying to decide how to start—taking charge like this still didn't come naturally, despite how often he'd done it.

Barret was standing in his usual spot, where he could see the sky. After they'd eaten all of the pancakes the girls had made, he had driven the kids to Elmyra's house in Kalm while they waited for Cid to arrive with the airship. Barret always looked imposing, but he cut a sterner figure than usual, looking at Cloud expectantly.

Cid was at the controls, his copy of _LOVELESS_ sitting on one side of the console. He'd decided to go see it with Shera after the mess with Meteor had ended, and…was asleep for most of it again. The grizzled pilot really wasn't one to pay attention to theater. But she had bought him a copy of the script sometime afterwards, and though he never read it, he kept it in the cockpit out of respect for his assistant-turned-partner.

Yuffie was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the cockpit, with her head between her knees. Her motion sickness was just as bad as Cloud's had been as a teenager, and she normally wouldn't even be in the cockpit, but she had been very vocal about wanting to hear the plan. Despite her materia-stealing antics during Meteor, the ninja had grown to be an incredibly dedicated and reliable ally.

Reeve hadn't joined them, his position with the WRO being too consistently demanding for him to leave their headquarters. But Cait Sith was there in his stead, megaphone and all. Cloud remembered fondly how confused he, Tifa, and Barret had been their first time in ShinRa HQ, finding one of those megaphones in a locker room. For the whimsical design, the cat made an effective robot.

Nanaki was standing near Vincent's usual spot, looking as serious as Cloud had ever seen him. He had never fully come clean about his grandfather's death years ago, but he'd grown up soon afterwards and taken on his role as protector of Cosmo Canyon with grace and dignity. Nanaki had grown closer to their missing friend than any of them had really expected, and seemed subdued without the ex-Turk present.

Tifa was standing on Cloud's left side, in the same spot as when they were fighting Meteor. After the conversation with Tseng, she'd been the one to call everyone else and fill them in on the situation, while Cloud tried to strategize. Thankfully, the problem wasn't a giant apocalyptic space rock this time around.

"Yo Spiky, are we gonna get this show on the road or what?" Barret asked, startling Cloud from his thoughts.

"Sorry," he answered, "…I was just reminiscing."

"Urk—Cloud, I think we all were," Yuffie said, looking up momentarily, "but can you—hurk—give us the plan before I get sick?"

"Yeah, I don't want any fuckin' vomit on this nice flooring," Cid added. "Tell us what's up so we can get on with it."

"Well," he started, feeling very self-conscious of the way he was standing, "I think going to investigate the lab again should be our first move. That's the only location we know the winter SOLDIER goes consistently, and even if he's not holding Vincent and Rufus there, we might find some clues."

"I agree that it's a good place to begin, Cloud," Nanaki said in his usual philosophical way, "but what will we do afterwards, assuming we can locate them? This man has you as a target, too."

"We'll camp out somewhere and wait for him to find us," the blond answered with a shrug. "I don't know what else we could do. Hopefully, when he shows up, we can…it would be nice if we could resolve this without fighting him, but it seems like that won't be an option."

"Why wait?" Cait Sith asked. "We lose the element of surprise that way."

"We have no idea how to track him," Tifa answered, "but he seems pretty capable of finding us. So we'll just have to be ready when he gets there."

"That simple, huh?" Barret said with a chuckle. "Well, I'm not complainin'. I never liked overly-complicated plans."

Everyone else nodded in assent. _It's not like I've ever been able to come up with a more solid plan_ , Cloud thought. _Check out someplace obvious. Find clues. Fight. Repeat. That's how it's always been._

"I can land the airship on the Wutai mainland," Cid told them after a moment, "but we'll have to take the chocobos to the cave. We'll be there in a few hours. Y'all should get some shuteye."

Without much further conversation, the six other AVALANCHE members went to find places to sleep or otherwise rest up.

Cloud's nap started out restless. His motion sickness only went away while he actively thought about other things, and sleep wasn't very conducive to good focus. His stomach tied itself into knots and waves of nausea swept over Cloud's whole body as he fell into an uneasy sleep.

He saw Aerith in his mind's eye, casting Planet Protector on the party as they battled Touch Me frogs outside Gongaga. He saw her face upon seeing the ruined town, full of compassion for its suffering people. He saw her own expression turn to one of suffering when an elderly couple inquired about their son. He saw Tifa's expression become something similar, saw her denial at knowing anything about the missing SOLDIER. He saw himself, oblivious to his own role in it—wearing the dead man's clothes, carrying his sword.

Cloud saw Aerith in the sleeping forest, telling him to take care of himself, and that she would come back when it was all over. He saw her praying for Holy in the forgotten city, saw Sephiroth drop from the skies and drive his sword through her back. He saw the life leave her kind green eyes and felt some of the light leave his own heart.

He saw himself losing his humanity, apologizing to Tifa for never living up to being 'Cloud.' He saw himself hand the apocalypse to Sephiroth without hesitation, saw himself curl up on the ceiling in a haze of panic, saw himself fall into the planet's lifeblood as the cave collapsed around them.

Then he saw…white feathers. They fell from the top of a shapeless space, caressing his face and falling at his feet. He looked at them with reverence and wonderment, knowing they were important somehow. The feathers disappeared, and the shapeless space gave way to a reactor he had seen far too many times.

He saw a fallen hero do battle with his best friend, saw him cast Zack aside like a broken rag doll. He saw a blond trooper, empowered with love and rage, pick up a sword that was too big for him and cut into the general's side. He saw the shocked look on Sephiroth's face, annoyed that someone as insignificant as Cloud could do damage to him. He saw the trooper walk out, looking at his injured friends helplessly. He could hurt, but he could not heal.

He watched as Sephiroth thrust the Masamune through his chest, lifting the blond off the ground in a demonstration of power. He watched himself defy the expectations of everyone and everything, and use the leverage he still had to drive the sword further into his chest and throw the silver-haired madman into the Lifestream itself. He watched three teenagers bleed out on the reactor floor.

The reactor disappeared, and Cloud saw himself struggle to find clarity in a sea of mako. He saw himself sitting on a wooden chair under an apple tree. He saw himself slung helplessly over Zack's shoulder, as his friend walked away from a man in a worn-looking red coat. He saw a yellow truck, and read promises on Zack's lips.

He watched himself raise an arm in protest, as Zack left to pay the price for their freedom.

Cloud watched as the former SOLDIER fought off what looked like an entire army, all so he would have a chance to keep living. He watched as six bullets went straight through his friend's back, watched as he fell to the ground in a pool of blood. Watched as the remaining soldiers left them both on the cliff to die.

He watched the rain fall, watched himself crawl over to where Zack lay. He saw the dying man lift one arm up to grip the back of Cloud's head, and pull him down to where his heart lay open and bleeding. He watched as Zack simultaneously comforted him and placed what felt like the weight of the whole world on Cloud's shoulders. He watched himself scream in anguish, promise to remember, and leave his friend behind forever.

The white feathers returned, a new addition to an old memory. Cloud watched himself drag his friend's legacy across the wasteland as the white feathers reached down to lift Zack off of the ground. But when the feathers retreated, his body still lay there. A sudden wave of dread and nausea washed over Cloud, sending both the feathers and the visions away in an instant.

He opened his eyes and sat straight up, banging his head on the underside of the conference table.

 _Breathe in, breathe out. Just nightmares._

After rubbing the spot where he hurt his head, Cloud crawled out and looked at the clock. He'd been asleep for all of two hours. _So much for resting up_ , he thought as he walked back towards the cockpit.

He found Cid lazily working the controls, looking out at the starry sky. "What're you doing up so soon, kid?" Cid asked, with his usual touch of irritation.

"Nightmares," Cloud said succinctly. "I can take over, if you want to get some sleep."

Cid just grunted. "I wouldn't be able to fall asleep," he admitted. "Too much shit on my mind." The pilot lit a cigar and took a long drag from it before speaking again. "Can I ask you a question, kid?"

Cloud nodded and leaned onto the railing.

"You built that motorbike of yours, right?" Cid asked in a decidedly non-questioning manner. "If you've got such a knack for machines, how come you're not doing _that_ for a living instead of deliverin' people's clean laundry?"

"It's…hard to explain," he admitted, looking out at the ocean below them. "I usually have this…tension inside. It's like I can't loosen up unless I'm on the run, or fighting something, or solving problems." Cloud turned to Cid, who nodded in sympathy. "Making deliveries…is not very satisfying. But riding Fenrir through the open air and the exhilaration of fighting monsters helps to clear my head. I think it has to do with living through too much war, or something like that."

"I think that makes sense, kid," the pilot responded thoughtfully after a moment. "I don't really feel like myself unless I'm either flyin' something or working on it. But I still think you'd make a real solid mechanic, if that's ever something you want to do."

"…Thanks, Cid," Cloud responded, a bit flustered at the unexpected compliment. "I'll, uh, think about it."

They stood in companionable silence for the next few hours, until the coast of Wutai became visible on the horizon, and the rest of their friends began trickling back in.

The trek over the mountains did not take very long, as the mountain chocobos were well-trained in traveling quickly, even under cover of nightfall. The sun was just starting to rise as the group approached the cave.

Cait Sith had gone in first, in case the winter SOLDIER was waiting in ambush. Once the robotic cat came back out and gave them a cheerful thumbs-up, Yuffie went in, with Cloud close behind her.

"Thank Gaia, you two are all right," the she said once they were inside.

Vincent and Rufus had both been tied down on one side of the cave, away from the computers. Cloud and Yuffie got to work undoing their restraints, while Rufus provided his usual commentary and the rest of AVALANCHE filed in behind them.

"Whoever that man is, he is at least as strong as you, Cloud," Rufus said appraisingly. "I was very impressed by his fighting abilities, especially for someone who should probably be dead."

"What do you mean, 'should probably be dead?'" Yuffie asked indignantly. The former executive's habit of withholding information had caused the group major problems on multiple occasions. "Did you recognize him? Do you know who he is?"

Vincent broke his silence, standing up and stretching his arms. "Our attacker not once removed his mask or goggles. He did put down his hood once, though. Dark hair. Long in the back, untamed."

"That matches my impression of him from a few weeks ago," Yuffie confirmed. "Wild black hair, mako eyes, and the posture of a SOLDIER."

 _She's known what he looks like the whole time?_ "Wait," Cloud said, "why didn't you give us that detail when we talked about this a few weeks ago?"

Yuffie gave him a sheepish look as their other friends helped Rufus outside. "Well, you'd looked a bit shaken from whatever it was you'd remembered," she admitted. "I thought giving you the detailed version might make it worse."

"I'm a little stronger than _that_ now, Yuffie," he replied. "…but thanks." _Gaia, she's really grown up._

Yuffie sighed, looking down at her shoes. "There's something else, too. He seemed…familiar somehow. As if I'd met him before, a long time ago. It's really bothering me that I can't place the connection."

The blond put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. "You were a kid when ShinRa was invading Wutai. SOLDIERs were in high demand back then…believe me, I wouldn't have tried so hard to get in if they weren't. He could have been someone you've seen before…but after we find him, we'll know for sure, okay?"

 _I want to know who he is too, Yuffie. And why he's doing…whatever he's doing._

Cait Sith motioned for him to come closer to the computers. "I'm going to download these files, to see if we can analyze them later," the cat said. "Hopefully we can set up an emulator of this console, and figure out how to decrypt all of this data. I'll be ready to leave in a few minutes."

Cloud nodded and moved outside with the rest of the group. "So, Vincent," he said, "why'd you let yourself get captured?"

Vincent's stoic expression did not change. "I thought that if I went along, perhaps I would get some valuable information." _Classic Vincent._

"And?" Barret asked, waving his prosthetic arm back towards the cave's entrance. "You see anything good?"

"The man in black snuck up on me while I was travelling some days ago, and struck me in a way that would have concussed anyone else. I chose to feign unconsciousness, to see what would happen. When we arrived here, he tied me down the way you found me, and approached the computer. I couldn't see what was on the screen, but I heard a recorded version of…Hojo's voice. 'You do not know her,' he said. 'You do not know anyone. You are merely a tool, a means to an end.'"

 _If Hojo was involved…we're gonna have a bad time trying to reason with this guy, if any of his original self is still there. Hopefully I won't have to kill him…_

"You're telling me that sick Jenova-loving bastard is somehow responsible for this?!" Cid interrupted.

"This must have been an old project of his," Cloud speculated. "Something he set up so that it would keep going even after he died. He held his…experiments in higher regard than everything else in life."

"That does sound like Hojo," Rufus agreed. "Always trying to cause chaos, with or without reason."

"That's not the most interesting part," Vincent continued, pointedly ignoring Rufus's choice of words. "The man grabbed his head as if something was attacking him from the inside, and started to shake until the computer told him rather angrily to go to sleep. Then he opened the strange mako tank, climbed inside, and locked the door. This process repeated itself after he returned with Rufus. He's been gone since then."

"Did he ever actually _say_ anything?" Tifa asked. "Or was he silently following orders?"

"The computer seemed to have more control over him than he did over himself," Vincent answered. "In any case, I would say the program was communicating directly with something in the man's brain."

 _Hojo's projects…only one way to find out._ "I'm gonna check it out," Cloud decided, against all better judgment. "If that's really the case, it'll probably affect me, too. Maybe I can help figure out what exactly is going on here."

His idea was met immediately with a chorus of no's, Tifa's the firmest. "Cloud…are you sure you want to do that? What if it's Jenova?"

"…It's just a computer," he said nonchalantly, although his nervous hands and rising heartbeat betrayed him. "I'll be fine, and as long as you guys are guarding the entrance and the tank I shouldn't be able to do anything stupid."

After an uneasy silence, the group seemed to realize they wouldn't be able to sway him on this. Cloud reentered the cave and approached the computer console, not sure what to expect.

He knew something was seriously wrong as soon as he turned it on.

His head felt like it was in a blender, and he reflexively brought his hands to his ears as if to block out the sound. _What the hell…?_ This definitely wasn't Jenova's influence, or anything else he'd experienced before—it felt much deeper, and very _wrong_ in a way he couldn't place. Cloud couldn't move, couldn't think. Images started flashing in his mind—images of himself, during the most shameful and lost part of his life.

Struggling for control, Cloud commanded the voices to change, to do _something else_. That wasn't who he was anymore. The images morphed together, creating an identity without a name, without a face, without any clear purpose but to obey…obey who, exactly? He didn't want to be a puppet, never again. …Who was he? Why was he here?

After what seemed like an eternity, he started to win out over the shell of his former self. _I'm not a puppet,_ he shouted into the void. _I choose my own path! My purpose…is to live my life out in peace. And it's_ my _life, it doesn't belong to anyone but me. I'm a warrior, a friend, a human being…my name is Cloud Strife, damn it!_

At the recollection of his own name, the pain and the confusion all went away in an instant. Cloud opened his eyes and saw, to his great relief, the morning sunlight streaming in from the roof of the cave—he had returned to reality, seemingly with no lasting damage. He lifted his hand in a shaky thumbs-up, indicating he was alright.

Tifa immediately walked over, grabbed his hand, and pulled him up into a tight hug. "…I'm glad you're okay," she said, rubbing circles into his back in the way she knew would ground him. "But I think you screwed up the computer."

Sure enough, it only took once glance to see that the console was displaying a long string of error messages. "…How did that happen?" he asked. "Did I attack it somehow?"

"If you did, it was with your mind," Nanaki answered from the other side of the cave.

"From where I was standin'," Barret added with some hesitation, "it looked an awful lot like the fits you used to have back when you were workin' for me. You grabbed your head and fell down. Then the computer busted and you woke up."

"Did it feel like Jenova at all?" Tifa asked softly.

Cloud shook his head, broke free of her embrace, and went back to the console. The screen was displaying a few messages repeatedly, and the blond took a few moments to catch all of them. "Source code overwritten. Starting backup operating system," he said, more to himself than to the group. _What is going on here? What's the source code, if I could change it with my mind?_

"What the fuck does that even mean?" Cid asked around his cigar. "You can't reprogram something without actually _interactin'_ with the computer…"

"…We should go." Cloud said after a moment, feeling more violated than he had in a long while. He really didn't want to think about the implications of Hojo's final experiment until they were safely out of here. "I have a theory, and I'll explain it on the way back to Edge, but we should leave before the winter SOLDIER comes back and finds we trashed the place."

A consensus was made to talk about it later, and AVALANCHE returned to the mainland with Rufus in tow.

It was mid-afternoon by the time the Highwind landed on the wastelands outside Midgar. They had no trouble choosing the location—the barren fields had no natural life that could be destroyed in a battle, and the winter SOLDIER would probably come looking near here anyway. There also weren't any skyscrapers out here to bound off of, meaning if it came to a fight, it would largely be ground-based.

Cloud's theory was incomplete and troubling, to say the least, so he was reluctant to share it while Rufus was still with them. He'd held off on the explanation until after Reno's favorite helicopter had flown away in a storm of sunset-colored dust. If the winter SOLDIER showed up anytime soon, the battle would be under cover of darkness.

After having several hours to reflect on the morning's events, Cloud had arrived at something like a conclusion. The invasion to his mind was all-encompassing in a way that he had never experienced before. Jenova's and Sephiroth's influence usually aimed straight for the fear and motor areas of his mind, causing him to act in ways he didn't want, but leaving him unable to resist due to being, well, absolutely terrified.

In contrast, the episode in the cave was a direct attack on Cloud's perceptions of himself, and felt like a much more acute version of a mako-poisoning coma. Except…it wasn't the same. Both of his battles with mako poisoning had involved his identity being overshadowed by someone else's. Zack's the first time, Sephiroth's (perhaps, he still wasn't sure) the second. And while he had felt distinctly off both times, it wasn't as fundamentally _wrong_ as what he'd felt from the computer.

No, it had been worse. His own past identity—the one who nearly killed Aerith and who handed Sephiroth the keys to destruction—had tried to take over. And in refusing to submit to…himself, Cloud had managed to override the operating system.

He explained this theory as best as he could, and thankfully, he hadn't needed to say anything more for his friends to understand what he was trying to get at.

"You think Hojo had programmed the computer to communicate with _your_ cells?" Cait Sith summarized. "But why would he do that, if he was intending on acting through the winter SOLDIER?"

"I think it's pretty damn likely that he injected some of my cells into the guy," Cloud answered with a grim expression. "After all, I proved to be a much better puppet than any of the others, didn't I? And Hojo was always going on about how I was 'such an interesting experiment,' or something like that. I think…whoever this winter SOLDIER was before, his mind was more resistant and more resilient than Hojo liked."

"How would that even work, though?" Tifa asked, giving Cloud a searching look. "Injecting some other person with your genetic material makes sense—he was trying to turn people into Sephiroth clones the same way. But…that doesn't explain what the computer was trying to do."

Vincent was the first person to come up with an answer. "I imagine that, since this man must have had a very strong perception of himself before falling into Hojo's hands, there would have needed to be constant reinforcement of his non-identity. Based on what I saw…it must have been forcing the puppet mindset onto him whenever he felt like he might remember something of his past life."

"You're probably right," Cloud agreed. "All things considered…I don't want to have to kill anyone else, but if his actions at Healin are any indication, we might not have a choice."

"And we don' have any time to discuss it, either," Barret said gravely, pointing his gun arm towards the setting sun. "Here he comes."

The winter SOLDIER, clad in the same mask and hood the Turks had described him wearing, seemed to understand that he would not have the element of surprise here. He practically sauntered onto the battlefield, standing directly across from Cloud, as if daring him to make the first move.

Cloud couldn't help but smirk, ready for a good fight. "All right, everyone," he said. "Let's mosey."

Cid howled with laughter at that, despite the seriousness of their situation, and the blond definitely heard his other friends snicker. They all took up their fighting stances, ready to face the threat at hand.

The man in black made a dramatic picture, setting sun to his back, as he took out his blades and moved towards Cloud.

Deciding not to pull his punches, the blond split First Tsurugi into two blades as he lunged at the other man. Surprisingly, the hooded warrior had no trouble whatsoever dodging to the side, and Cloud's sword met air.

The battle started in high gear. The eight friends had not battled anyone so strong or fast together since Sephiroth in the Northern Crater three years ago. Cloud unleashed strike after strike, never once touching the man. Tifa's punches and kicks met thin air. Yuffie's shuriken nearly cut into Vincent at one point, whose gunshots bounced off the ex-SOLDIER's armor like pebbles. Cid's aerial attacks ate dust, and Nanaki was faring no better. Cait's megaphone was virtually useless in the fray. Their attacker was everywhere and nowhere all at once, slipping through their fingers like ink.

Potions were tossed around the battlefield. The sunset was exceptionally beautiful tonight, but no one was watching. The battle was like a violent dance, exceptionally similar to their past battles in that their attacker was more interested in wearing them down than in ending it quickly.

Night fell, and at some point it had started to rain.

Most of AVALANCHE was losing momentum, only staying on their feet thanks to the adrenaline in their systems. In contrast, the winter SOLDIER never seemed to tire, and eventually started to gain the upper hand.

Cait Sith was the first one down. The hooded swordsman had somehow managed to block Cloud's overhead strike with one blade, while slicing clean through Cait's body with the other. _It's still seven-to-one._

It became clear after a few more minutes that the winter SOLDIER was aiming to knock down all of Cloud's allies first before going for his target, the same way he did at Healin a week ago. Cloud possessed superhuman speed, but their attacker was faster still,, and hell-bent on avoiding him directly. Yuffie was knocked unconscious mid-throw by what seemed to be his favorite concussion-inducing strike. Nanaki rather unfortunately found himself head-butting the flat of that same blade a few moments later. _Five of us left standing._

In an acrobatic move that left Cloud more impressed than anything else, the hooded warrior rolled away from Cid just as the pilot was bearing down from above, got to his feet in a fraction of a second, and delivered a powerful backfist to the head. Cloud was becoming more worried by the second, but he couldn't give up. He wouldn't let himself be captured, not when he had _absolutely no idea_ what was at stake.

The fighters who were still standing moved into support roles. Vincent, with his gunning skills not very effective in this fight (and probably not willing to summon Chaos for fear of killing their attacker), moved their unconscious friends back towards the airship. Barret launched explosive after explosive in the winter SOLDIER's direction, but he could only do so much with Cloud also in the line of fire. Tifa alternated between tossing potions to Cloud and aiming kicks at the man in black.

The storm continued to grow, the ground becoming treacherously slippery. Tifa and Cloud had the man surrounded on two sides, but he leapt high into the air, landing several feet away and right on top of Barret. _Two-on-one._

Tifa had run out of potions, but she and Cloud redoubled their attacks, using every combo they had ever come up with during their usual sparring matches. Punches, kicks, and sword swings filled the air with the sounds of battle. They had both taken damage—Cloud to his left arm and Tifa to her right ankle, but they had been able to keep fighting in much worse shape than this.

The fight seemed to rage on for hours, and Cloud could tell that their winter SOLDIER was starting to tire. His attacks became just a little slower, his jumps just a little lower. Tifa surprised their attacker by ducking under the swing of his sword and grabbing his legs, going for a suplex. Unfortunately, the man in black got an elbow to her temple midair, and he landed gracefully while she fell with a sickening thud.

It was ex-SOLDIER against ex-SOLDIER now.

Cloud didn't usually think during battles. They were usually too fast for it, especially against enemies as challenging as this one. A particularly strong gust of wind caused them both to hunch over for a moment, however, and it gave Cloud a second to strategize. He'd been fighting with two blades this whole time. _Time to change it up._

When the strongest gusts had subsided, Cloud fused the two halves of First Tsurugi, taking up the stance he had used while wielding the Buster Sword.

To his complete surprise, the other man did the same, his two blades fusing together into one broadsword that rivaled Cloud's in size and weight.

They stood there for a split second, sizing each other up. The winter SOLDIER's hood had finally fallen down while the wind was strongest, revealing black hair that, like his, somehow managed to stick out in all directions even with them both being soaked to the bone. Cloud schooled his expression into one of grim determination, refusing to give the other man any indication that he was ready to throw in the towel, and charged.

The blond put all of his considerable strength into the battle, refusing to give in. He met the other swordsman strike for strike, the clash of swords creating a dissonant rhythm with the rain and thunder. It was nearly too dark to see now, but Cloud's mako eyes adjusted well to the dark, and he knew the same would be true of the other man.

Cloud put the full force of his determination behind every attack, and he slowly but surely gained the upper hand. The battle moved surprisingly far from the Highwind, approaching a rocky cliff that Cloud knew well. The winter SOLDIER seemed to be bleeding from several cuts on his arms and torso, and the blond put him on the defensive, driving him towards the cliff with overpowered overhead strikes and wide sweeps of his sword.

Just as the black-haired swordsman reached the edge of the cliff, another strong gust of wind rendered them both immobile. Cloud couldn't make anything out clearly through the rain and the darkness, but he saw the outline of the man's mask and goggles blow away, over the cliff's edge. The wind subsided, and several bolts of lightning hit the ground at once, illuminating the other man's face.

Time froze, and Cloud's heart suddenly weighed more than all of the souls in the Lifestream. He would never be able to finish this battle, even if the whole world depended on it.

There was an x-shaped scar on his jaw, one Cloud knew he had gotten from being forced to fight an old mentor on the day they met. He had lips that were usually smiling in amusement or pouting in contemplation, but were now twisted into a grimace. Despite everything, he still had that one strand of hair that defiantly bent over to hang in front of his face. And his eyes…they would haunt him forever. They had been so full of kindness and courage, and he had watched the light leave them on the worst day of his life.

First Tsurugi fell to the ground. "...Zack?"

He gave the blond a look of complete incomprehension. "I'm not—I'm—who's Zack?"

Cloud was frozen in shock and anguish, unable to do anything but watch helplessly as the other man started to shake, before going unnaturally still.


	4. Chapter 4

Tifa was on her feet again as soon as the healing magic of a Phoenix Down worked its way through her veins. She saw Vincent working on reviving the others, and gave him a short nod before heading back out into the storm. Cloud needed help, and he needed it soon if she'd been out for very long.

She followed the sounds of battle towards the cliff where Cloud used to keep the Buster Sword, and a sudden squall nearly knocked her flat. There was a sudden flash of lightning, and Tifa could just barely make out the silhouettes of the two men about a hundred yards away. Redoubling her efforts, she kept going. The absolute insanity of the storm kept her visibility low, and Cloud reached her before she got to the cliff.

He was carrying the other man, bridal-style, and the look on his face was so anguished that Tifa was all too reminded of a different loss, in another place a thousand miles away. Her eyes traveled down, and—

"Oh Gaia," she breathed. "Cloud…is he…?"

"I think so," he answered, obviously making a valiant effort not to break down. "We need to get him out of the storm."

They redistributed Zack's weight over both of their shoulders, and struggled back towards the airship.

Tifa didn't ask as they backtracked, but…she wasn't a fool. Considering everything they already knew, it was a sure bet that Zack had an unheard-of amount of mako poisoning. She just hoped they'd be able to make it through this time, too.

When the Highwind came into sight, she saw that the others had gathered around the door, obviously waiting for their return. _They must have heard the fighting stop._

Yuffie gasped and put her hands to her mouth when she saw who was with them, and Barret helped them set Zack down near one of the walls, while the confusion on the others' faces grew—the expression on Cloud's was probably more telling than anything they could have said.

"…Cloud, did you know him?" Nanaki asked after a moment.

"Yeah…" the blond said, closing his eyes and averting his face. "Guys…this is Zack."

The shock on the others' faces would have been humorous if the situation wasn't so gaiadamn heartbreaking.

After a tense silence that spoke volumes about the others' disbelief, Cait Sith spoke up and voiced was everyone was probably thinking. "…How can you be sure?" the cat asked. "That it's really him? That he's not…a copy of some sort?"

Tifa saw anger flash in Cloud's eyes and immediately resolved to call Reeve later and tell him to program some more tactfulness into that robot. The blond wordlessly moved to Zack's side and undid the zippers and buckles on the other man's shirt to reveal a set of scars that could only belong to him. "There's your proof," he growled. "I give you my word that they're all in the right places."

Cait Sith seemed to understand he'd gone over the line, and didn't say anything more, giving Tifa a chance to take some semblance of control over the situation before Cloud could get more upset. "Cid, get us back to the bar. We'll talk there."

The short flight passed without any more conversation. The group comforted Cloud in the small ways they could—Barret's hand on his shoulder, Tifa's arm around his waist. Rubbing small circles.

Once the ship landed again, the friends shuffled into the bar as if they'd never seen the place before. Cloud immediately carried Zack upstairs, and Tifa was left to set things in order.

"Yuffie, can you go upstairs and help him set up a cot in the office? I know he can do it on his own, just…make sure he comes back down," she said, watching the younger woman go upstairs. "Barret, can you grab a blanket from the laundry room for when he gets back? Cid, get some tea going. Vincent, pull out some chairs." _We need to work together if there's any chance of getting through this._

Yuffie led Cloud back downstairs a few minutes later, and Tifa got him situated with the warm blanket and a cup of tea while everyone else sat down, the awkwardness thick enough to cut with a knife.

"So…" Barret said slowly, taking great care with his choice of words, "What exactly happened out there, Spiky?"

Cloud looked at his tea like he didn't remember how to drink it, and then looked up with glassy eyes. "Well…we…"

"He doesn't have to talk about it if he doesn't want to," Yuffie interrupted.

"Yes he does. None of us have a damn clue what's going on," Cid shot back. "I don't understand—"

 _Did everyone's bedside manners jump out the window?_ "Stop it," Tifa said forcefully. "There's no point in us fighting. Let Cloud talk."

He took a few shaky breaths and a sip of the tea before continuing. "We were fighting, and…the lightning struck, all at once, and his mask came off. I…I couldn't…I could never hurt him…"

Cid opened his mouth to interrupt again, but Tifa shot him a glare so full of venom that he held up his hands in a gesture of surrender before looking away.

"I…what was I supposed to do? I put down my sword, I said his name, and…he didn't recognize it."

 _There it is, then. Mako poisoning._ Everyone exchanged meaningful looks. They knew what they were dealing with now.

"What will you do, Cloud?" Nanaki asked.

The blond looked more clear-headed now than he had at any point since leaving the wastelands. "I'm going to stay by his side until he wakes up. I'd be a traitor to do anything else after everything he's done for me."

 _Gaia save us now._ It was a painful road to take, but Tifa couldn't begrudge him for it. She'd made the same decision years ago, after all. And she would do it again—take care of him and Zack both while they fought to get him back.

"Why you apologizin'?" Barret asked, the same way he did back in Mideel so long ago. "We'll…hell, we'll do what we did last time. We'll head out, do whatever we can to help, and then come back and check on y'all."

"I'm staying too," Yuffie said after a moment. "I want to help…here."

Tifa was surprised by the younger woman's decision, but appreciated it all the same. Gaia knew she could use some help going through this again, and Yuffie's presence was usually uplifting (if obnoxious) in a way that her own probably wouldn't be if this went on for very long.

Vincent gave a thoughtful sigh. "I know this is...taking precedence over other matters, but I'm still concerned as to why this has happened in the first place. I'll help Reeve in decrypting the lab files, and in finding out whatever we can…maybe we'll find something to help Zack."

Cloud and Tifa both gave approving nods, although the chances of that helping heal mako poisoning were pretty much zero. _Yeah, we probably shouldn't forget about that list,_ she thought. _It was meant to do something, even if Zack won't follow through on it now._

"And I'll look through my grandfather's journals again," Nanaki added. "He had many theories about these sorts of situations, and although they were all purely hypothetical…there might be something we can try."

"What about you and me, Barret?" Cid asked over his own cup of tea.

"You had that project you were workin' on, yeah?" the older man responded. "Maybe we can get that up and runnin' before too long."

"What project?" Tifa asked, glad for a natural change in topic.

"Oh, it's nothin' yet," Cid answered. "Jus' a little experiment I was doin' with some of Reeve's ideas."

"Well," Yuffie said, yawning, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm bushed. It's really late…"

Cid gave her a pat on the back and stood up. "Back in the airship if you wanna get out of here," he said, motioning for everyone else to leave. "You hang in there, guys. Take care of Zack."

Yuffie waited until Tifa had finally turned in for the night (after scolding Reeve on the phone for about ten minutes) before calling home.

"Hey, pumpkin!" Godo answered. "How are you doing over there? Isn't it late?"

"Dad, I'm an _adult_ , you don't have to call me pumpkin," she said with exasperation. "So…here's the thing…you remember that SOLDIER I used to send emails to?"

"Of course! How could I forget? You practically spammed him with challenges to hunt treasure!" She cringed a bit at the memory of her primitive materia-stealing techniques as her dad chuckled. "What about him?"

"Well, he's kind of…reappeared. We were chasing down that guy who tried to take Mom's ashes, and it ended up being him. And it turns out Cloud knew him, too."

"Really? Hmm…I take it you're not coming back to visit anytime soon?"

Yuffie gave a guilty sigh before answering. "I'm sorry, Dad…he's got mako poisoning. I just…I feel like I need to stay. Cloud's really down about it, and Tifa's done enough to keep him sane already."

"Don't feel bad about it, pumpkin. They need you right now more than Wutai or the WRO does…you told them, right?"

"Yeah, it's fine," she answered. "Or it better be, because I'm not leaving for a while."

"Alright…I can hear you yawning all the way from here. Goodnight, Yuffie. Love you."

"Love you too, Dad."

Morning came around faster than she would have liked, and she woke up in Marlene's bed to the sound of Tifa and Cloud arguing about something.

"He's my friend, Tifa, I can give him a bath," she heard him say through the wall.

"What, and your friends can't be my friends, too? He's gonna be everyone's friend as soon as he wakes up, goofball. And you're just going to blush the whole time."

 _Wait, what? …Cloud swings that way? He swings any way?_

"Okay, okay. We'll do it together."

After she heard their footsteps retreat into the bathroom, Yuffie climbed out of bed and stretched, going downstairs to make some food. _What time is it…noon? Gaia, I need to work on waking up at normal times._

She'd just fixed up an egg sandwich when both of her friends walked downstairs. "Oh, morning Yuffie," Cloud said, the slight blush on his cheeks not going unnoticed. Nope, she would make sure to remember that for future technically-not-blackmailing purposes. "Uh, when'd you wake up?"

"Just a few minutes ago," she answered. "What's the plan today?"

"Well," Tifa said, as Yuffie took an enthusiastic bite out of her sandwich, "we just got Zack cleaned up, and set up a second cot in the office…I'll wash all the sheets while you guys go pick up the kids, and then we can decide where everyone's sleeping."

Yuffie gave a cheerful thumbs-up in response, since her mouth was full of egg.

A few minutes later, she and Cloud walked outside. The weather was warm and sunny, and the wind felt good in her hair.

"How are we gonna fit all four of us on that bike of yours?" she asked, eyeing Fenrir with suspicion.

"We're not taking the bike," he said in response. "There's an old truck that we use sometimes."

Sure enough, down the street was an old blue truck with "Midgar's Motor Gals" painted on the side. Yuffie climbed in the passenger seat while Cloud lit the ignition.

For someone who was so graceful on a motorcycle, Cloud was a surprisingly shitty driver. She spent most of the ride to Kalm trying to keep her sandwich from making a reappearance. "Can—you—maybe—swerve—less?" she asked as they veered off the road for about the hundredth time.

"Sorry, Yuffie," he said, eyes narrowed in concentration. "I don't know if you'd believe this…but I never actually learned how to drive."

"Gee—I never—would have guessed!" Her sarcasm would have been evident to a chipmunk. "I'm driving back—okay?"

They pulled into Kalm in what seemed like no time at all (probably due to Cloud's reckless driving), and Yuffie walked up to Elmyra's door, giving a few knocks.

A moment later, the kind woman opened the door, gesturing for them to come inside.

"I wasn't expecting you all back so soon," she said. "Did it go well?"

 _Oh, shit._ Yuffie had totally forgotten…Elmyra had known Zack, too. She gave Cloud a questioning look. _What do we say?_

He must've figured Mrs. Gainsborough had gotten enough surprises in her life to deal with one more, because he barely hesitated before telling the truth. "We found Vincent and Rufus without any trouble," he said. "The other guy showed up…and it turns out he's Zack."

Sure enough, Elmyra took the news like it was nothing. Her jaw clenched, but her eyes softened. "So he's alive after all?"

"It seems like it, yeah," Cloud answered, looking despondent. "But he's got mako poisoning…he didn't even know who he was."

Elmyra pulled Cloud in for a brief hug before responding. "Well, I hope you can get him back," she said decisively. "Gaia knows you all deserve some good cheer in your life, and that boy was nothing if not cheerful."

"Who?" a different voice asked, peeping out from behind the stairs. Marlene saw Cloud and ran to hug him around the waist. _So many hugs. Good, he needs them._

"I'll show you and Denzel once we get back, okay?" he said. "He's a friend of mine."

"You have friends we haven't met?" the boy in question asked sarcastically, making an appearance.

"That's not very nice of you," Yuffie said, putting her hands on her hips. Denzel just shrugged. _It's like he's absorbing all of the snarky parts of Cloud's personality._

Elmyra waved them all out, and the kids seemed exceptionally relieved to find out that Yuffie was driving them back, which she thought was hilarious. They peppered Cloud with stories of what they'd done during their two days in Kalm, and Yuffie smiled to herself. It was really sweet to see him have a family like this.

They walked back into the bar to find Zack conked out on one of the barstools, and Tifa standing nearby with a pair of scissors in hand and a puzzled expression on her face.

"What're you doing, Teef?"

Their arrival startled her out of her thoughts. "Oh, um, I was going to…give him a haircut," she admitted. "He really needs it…"

Cloud gave them all an _I've-got-this_ smirk and took the scissors from Tifa, getting to work on Zack's tangled mane of hair.

"Who is he, Cloud?" Marlene asked, staring intently at Zack's peaceful face.

"Did I ever tell you guys about my best friend from while I was in the army?" the blond gave as an answer, trimming the black spikes down to their usual length.

"You mean this is Zack?" Denzel looked incredulous. "You told us he'd…"

"I know, Denz," Tifa interrupted. "We found him last night. You know how Cloud was sick a few years ago and couldn't remember a lot of things, and was asleep for a while?"

The kids nodded, having heard that story before.

"Well, now Zack's sick too, and we're gonna take care of him until he gets better."

Cloud gave a frustrated grunt. "Can somebody hold his head up? I don't want to cut his hair too short…"

Yuffie moved in to help, and Tifa swept up the growing pile of black hair while the kids put their things away before returning to watch.

Marlene giggled once Cloud finally put down the scissors. "His hair is as spiky as yours now!"

He snorted, but the look in his eyes was wistful. "It was even worse when we first met…"

He told them all little stories about their new charge while he finished up Zack's haircut, and the next several days passed in a haze of domesticity that Yuffie hadn't experienced in a long time.

Cloud had opted into sleeping on the second cot in the office, to keep an eye on Zack in case anything happened. They all respected that, and Yuffie ended up taking his bed for the time being.

Tifa liked to cope by talking things out, and so they passed many of the nights with pillow talk. The older woman told Yuffie the things she was too kind to tell Cloud. How he didn't know yet just how hard it was to be on the other side, to watch someone you love be in so much pain and be powerless to help. How he seemed hopeful now, but as the time wore on, there would be less and less to distract him from the glaring fact that Zack might never get better.

Yuffie wasn't blind. She knew Cloud, and knew that he was like a sort of emotional sponge, absorbing the moods of the people around him. She knew that Tifa wouldn't be able to keep up her cheerful façade for very long—that's why she had decided to stay in the first place, damn it. And she knew it wouldn't be fair to place the burden of anyone's grief on the kids' shoulders. So Yuffie took it upon herself to distract them all with the sheer force of her personality, and try to keep their hopes up as best as she could.

She ended up handling most of Cloud's deliveries—he might as well have been advertising that he was staying at the bar for the foreseeable future, and she refused to let Tifa talk her out of it. They needed the income, with a few extra people in their home, and she took their old truck to all of Cloud's usual places (since nothing on Gaia could convince her to drive his monster of a motorcycle). His usual clients were understandably concerned, and Yuffie gave the best explanations she could for his absence without divulging too much information, since she didn't know how friendly he was with them.

That is, until her first scheduled delivery to Healin. Reno seemed almost disappointed to see her at the door instead of Cloud, and immediately asked her how he was holding up, expression more concerned than Yuffie had ever seen it.

"All things considered, he's not doing too bad," she answered. _Yet._

"Reeve called us a couple days after you got back, yo," he said. "Gaia…if I'd known it was him, I woulda…I dunno. Done some things differently, maybe."

"You knew him too, huh?"

"Are you kidding, yo? _Everybody_ knew him. Zack Fair, ray of fuckin' sunshine, runnin' around ShinRa like everyone's favorite puppy…hell, he was friends with Sephiroth, yo. And some spunky Wutai girl who I heard stole some good materia from him."

Yuffie couldn't suppress a smirk. "You don't know already? That was _me_ ," she said.

Reno doubled over in laughter at the coincidence for a moment, before the anxious expression returned to his face. "Well..uh…if Tifa or you or him needs anything, or just want some more company, don't hesitate to give us a call, yo," he said awkwardly.

"I'm sure they'd appreciate it, but…I'll call you when it's a good time, okay? See you later, Reno."

And so the days passed by. Yuffie helped the kids finish their game project for school—they'd eventually decided to draw all of their friends on the cards, and finished by making a bonus one for Zack, with his numbers being a mirror image of Cloud's. When Tifa had seen it, she very quickly went outside to water the flowers, but not before Yuffie saw tears. She kept Strife Delivery Service going during the day, and helped Tifa run the bar at night, since they couldn't afford to close up—not when it was looking more and more like this was a long-term situation.

It turned out that sorting out all of the household arrangements on their first day wasn't such a good idea, because without anything to do, Cloud was very quickly falling back into depression. She could see the hope draining from him, day by day, and Tifa's hope along with it.

After a week and a half, Yuffie found an opportunity to actually tell both of them how she knew Zack, and while Tifa responded with a certain amount of amusement and understanding, Cloud's reaction was just…blank, mostly. Like his reaction to almost everything lately. He spent most of his time in the office, not even looking at Zack most of the time, just lost in thought. Her stories couldn't even distract him anymore.

Yuffie's emotional endurance was up there with the best of them, but her energy wasn't infinite. She was getting tired. And through all of it, Zack remained unresponsive, as if he was thousands of miles away.

Tifa was slowly losing her mind.

It had been two weeks since they found Zack, and those two weeks were easily some of the hardest of Cloud's life and hers.

She was very glad Yuffie had stayed to help them, because she wasn't sure if they would have been able to hold it together without her. The younger woman had picked up the slack for both of them, making deliveries and helping to run the bar while Tifa was lost in worry and while Cloud holed up in the office. Yuffie's legendary cheer only went so far, however, and nothing she could do would fix the absolute _injustice_ of what had happened to them.

Tifa prided herself on her ability to stay calm and collected, regardless of what was happening around her. It was a necessary skill for someone who owned a bar, and even more so for someone who was close to Cloud, as trouble followed him like a shadow. Tifa did what needed to be done, put her own feelings aside, and kept it together. Because someone had to.

But Gaia, she was _livid_ now.

It was like a cruel joke from the gods, punishing them for trying to be happy. Nothing Sephiroth had done had unraveled Cloud like this. He'd been through so much—watching his friends die, forgetting so much of his life, and then having to save the world through it all—and seeing one of those friends return, only to be suffering through the same awful things he had—it was unbearable, to say the least.

She was losing him again, losing him to grief and pain and there wasn't a damn thing she could do to stop it. And it had only been _two weeks_. Tifa had needed to take care of Cloud for longer than that, and it was only by a stroke of luck that she _ever_ got him back. Zack might very well be in a coma for the rest of their lives, and…it was too much, they wouldn't be able to carry on like this indefinitely. Something had to give.

They got a few updates from Vincent and Nanaki, mostly to say that they hadn't found anything new. She wasn't surprised. Mako poisoning wasn't a disease that could be cured, at least not in a normal way.

And so Tifa went through the motions of their day-to-day lives, bottling up her anger. It wouldn't do anyone any good if she fell apart now. She needed to keep it together, because _someone had to_.

She'd closed up the bar for the night on the sixteenth day, and was retreating upstairs to fall into a merciless sleep. She stopped in her tracks when she heard Cloud sniffling through the door of the office.

"Gaia, Zack…I miss you so much…I can't keep going on without you. What…what if you never recover for the rest of your life?"

It was hearing Cloud repeat her own words, hearing him admit how much pain he was in, that caused her to finally snap.

Tifa practically flew back downstairs and was out the door in no time at all. She got on Fenrir, revved the engine, and drove off.

She'd never taken the motorcycle by herself before, and if the exhilarating feeling was anything like Cloud experienced, she understood why he used to run away so often. Maintaining control over the bike took most of her concentration, especially with how dark the roads were. She drove straight into the remains of Sector 5, to the only place that felt safe enough for her to let it all out.

Tifa opened the doors to the church with force, and instead of seeing the forgotten pews and healing water, she suddenly found herself in…a forest. The sleeping forest, to be precise, which made no sense, because she was definitely not on the northern continent. _What…?_

"Hey, Tifa," said a familiar voice from somewhere behind her, and she felt most of the tension leave her.

Turning around, she saw the sweet face of one of her best friends. "Aerith? What…how…?"

"I've been trying to reach you for weeks now," she said, with a noticeable amount of sadness in her voice. "I can feel your pain, Tifa. And Cloud's, and Zack's."

"But…how are you here?" Tifa asked, perplexed.

"I used to be able to talk to Cloud like this," Aerith answered. "I could reach into his mind if he was feeling particularly upset…like you are right now."

"Okay…please tell me you're here to say that you know exactly what's going on and how to fix it," Tifa said, although she knew deep down that it would be more complicated than that.

"I might be able to help, but I'm not all-knowing," Aerith said patiently. "I've…known about this for a while now, but time flows differently in the Lifestream, and I can't see everything."

Both women sat down on the forest floor, and Aerith started redoing her braid.

"When I died, Zack was waiting for me," she started. "His spirit was full of love, and he had already started blending with all of the other souls. I spent some time with him, waiting for him to assimilate with the others, but…the Lifestream is different for me, Tifa. I'm not really a part of it yet the way most people are. If I focus, and conditions are right in the living world, I can do things like this. Others can't."

Tifa pursed her lips in thought. "But…Cloud told me that Zack appeared to him once, after the healing rain. Did you have something to do with that?"

"…This is where it gets weird. I stayed near him, but I tried to focus on Cloud, to see what was happening. I could just barely make out his presence in Mideel, and I saw…Hojo show up."

Tifa was taken aback. "When? What did he do?"

"It must have been before you found him…Hojo went into the hospital, and came out with a vial. Probably a sample of some sort."

Aerith paused for a moment to retie her ponytail before continuing. "It wasn't long after that when I felt Zack's presence solidify in a way that was different from all the others. One moment he was just another soul in the Lifestream, and the next…he could do some of the things I could. Like see Cloud through the haze of souls and time, and appear to him if he felt a strong enough calling."

"What do you mean, calling?"

"It's like…a call for help. The first time I appeared to Cloud, his soul was crying out for forgiveness. I'm with you now because your soul was begging for clarity, and…the Lifestream is a living thing, Tifa. The Planet knew I could help you, and so here I am."

"So…that must have been when Hojo injected him with Cloud's cells, then," Tifa concluded. "He must have gone in and taken Zack's body after he died, and…done something to preserve it, somehow. That…seems like something he would do."

Aerith gave a sad nod in agreement. "Whatever he did, it didn't change that Zack's soul was in the Lifestream with me. It just made him…stronger, somehow. He stayed with me for a while after that. We watched you save the Planet, and then we watched you all start to heal. Then the Geostigma happened."

"Could you…feel Sephiroth, in the Lifestream?" Tifa asked, wincing when she saw her friend's eyes darken.

"Yes…his soul is more lucid than most, but he can't appear to people like I can," she said. "He hasn't moved on yet, I'm afraid. He's not…mad here, like he was out there, but his soul hasn't accepted that it's fully human, and so he hasn't joined the others yet. There's nothing I can do for him."

"So…you said Zack _was_ with you. What happened to him?"

"I don't know exactly when, but…I think it would have been several months ago for you. We both felt Cloud's spirit call to us, and then release a lot of tension. Zack felt a strong pull, and then he was…gone."

"Gone?"

"Yes…gone. One moment there, and then the next, I couldn't find a trace of him."

 _That must have been the night Cloud opened up about him to the rest of us._

"You're probably right," was Aerith's response.

"You can hear my thoughts?"

The Cetra giggled. "Of course! This _is_ all in your head, Tifa."

"So…do you think…Cloud set up a Reunion of his own, or something like that? He must have been really missing Zack that night…maybe he somehow called Zack back into his own body."

"That makes as much sense as anything I've come up with, but…we might never know," Aerith said, shaking her head. "What I _do_ know is that I want you all to be happy, and that's not going to happen with Zack being lost in his own head."

"Okay, what do I do?" Tifa would jump straight into the Lifestream a second time if it could fix things.

"It can't be you," the other woman said, clasping their hands together and meeting her gaze. "Cloud managed to find himself because you were there to help, and you were one of his closest friends. But…you didn't know Zack all that well. And I can't help him in that way when I'm already here."

"It has to be Cloud, doesn't it?" She didn't need to say anything for Aerith to understand her worries…he didn't exactly have the best track record of holding himself together when exposed to mako.

"It does, but I said I could still help, right? Cloud needs to be the one to put Zack's mind back together…but I can make sure they both make it back out of the Lifestream."

"Where do they need to go?"

"Hmm…" the other woman looked over Tifa's shoulder at something in the distance and thought for a moment. "…take them to the Forgotten City. The Lifestream isn't so concentrated there, and…yes, that's the best place to go. I'll contact Cloud once they get close, okay?"

Tifa took a deep breath. "Are you sure this will work?"

"Honestly…no. Cloud should be fine, I'll make sure of it…but I have no idea what will happen to Zack. If he wakes up, he might not remember much…or he might remember everything. This is kind of a unique situation."

Tifa pulled the other woman in for a short hug, even though she knew her form wasn't physically there. "I'll do everything I can, Aerith…it can't be easy for you either, seeing them so lost. We'll get through this, okay?"

And with that, the forest suddenly disappeared along with Aerith, and Tifa was left standing alone in the church, everything still and quiet. _I hope Cloud's ready to try something drastic, cause it sure looks like that's our only option._

The doors burst open loudly, revealing a very out-of-breath Yuffie. "Tifa…I heard you leave…what…happened?"

"Call Cloud," Tifa said, with newfound determination. "I've got a plan."


	5. Chapter 5

Cloud stood outside the bar with a bag full of supplies, watching the moon fade in and out of sight as clouds rolled across the night sky.

He felt extraordinarily guilty when he got the call from Tifa—he'd forgotten his own sadness could affect her so much, and he probably should've told her a long time ago about his strange connection with Aerith. Just another thing to add to his list of screw-ups. _One way or another, I'm going to fix this today._

Cloud would have been happy leaving immediately—the sooner they got this show on the road, the better—but both women had told him on the phone that there would be hell to pay if he wasn't still at Seventh Heaven when they got back. And so he filled a duffel bag with a few extra sets of clothes, with the optimistic assumption that Zack would be taking a pair, and got Terra saddled up and ready to travel. He could wait another ten minutes for Tifa and Yuffie to get back, but he wasn't about to wait for an airship. Not when his friend's life was on the line, not when he had such a large debt to repay.

 _I've waited eight years for this…I'm not going to wait any longer now that there's a chance of finally getting him back._

That's what it came down to, really. Cloud had just barely managed to hold it together when Zack collapsed, but after he'd shown them the scars, and after the initial shock wore off…he couldn't say he was _surprised_ at the state of him. Gaia, everything they'd concluded about what must have happened to the other man—all of the pieces fell into place. No one held on to their sense of self as strongly as Zack did. Forcing Cloud's own indecisive identity (and his Sephiroth-like resistance to death) onto him was probably the only way Hojo could get him to succumb to the mako.

If he was being honest with himself, Aerith's plan had occurred to him already—that sort of dangerous measure was the only reason he was still alive. But he knew Tifa wouldn't have let him go, with the chances of either of them coming back again so slim. Gaia bless her, Aerith could be very persuasive sometimes, and knowing she would at least make sure _he_ made it back was enough for Tifa to be on board with the idea. Cloud was going to do whatever it took to save his friend.

The last few weeks had been undeniably hard, on everyone. Cloud had tried to remain hopeful at first, for the others' sake as much as his own. Tifa had distracted him from Zack's illness by giving him a lot of the housework, and Yuffie's own antics had kept everyone occupied for a while—but this sort of waiting-and-watching was just not something he could keep up, and he had been more on the edge of despair with each passing day. He had a newfound appreciation for everything Tifa had done for him—she'd managed to keep this up for a lot longer than he could, without anyone else's support, and she hadn't had _any_ idea what to do to help him get better. Tifa had never told him how it felt, to be so powerless in the face of someone else's suffering but stay with them all the same. If her pain had been anything like his was now…he could save the world a thousand times and still not make it up to her.

Cloud went to where Zack was laying on the ground, and got him into a sort of sitting position near the base of Terra's neck. It'd be hard, riding double _and_ having to be in control from the back, but it was the only position he could think of without risking having Zack fall into the ocean. He put the pieces of First Tsurugi in their harnesses just in case they ran into trouble, and strapped it and the duffel to his back. A few more minutes passed before he heard the telltale roar of Fenrir's engine.

"Tifa's a much better driver than you, Cloud," Yuffie said lightly, hopping off. "I don't feel sick at all."

The blond shrugged. "That's your opinion. I bet Zack will think I'm an _awesome_ driver," he said, trying to keep his tone light. He needed to believe this would work, even if it wasn't a sure bet.

Tifa smiled, but even Cloud could tell it was a front. Gaia knew how much it would hurt her, hurt them all, if he failed this time. Her smile gave way to an expression of concern. "Yeah, he probably will. Are you sure you want to go alone?"

He nodded. "I don't know how long this will take, and you need to keep the bar running and watch the kids. And…like Aerith said, there's not much either of you could do once we're actually in the Lifestream. I just gotta hold it together for Zack long enough to fix this."

"Hey," Tifa said, pulling him in for a much-needed hug (another thing he'd come to appreciate more in the past few weeks). "I believe in you. You can do this."

Yuffie butted in, making it a sort-of-awkward group hug. "You better let us know as soon as you get there," she said, looking up at him. "And as soon as you get out, and if you want to get picked up—"

"Yeah, yeah," he said, ruffling her hair as she scowled. "I'll call."

They broke the hug, and Cloud got on Terra's back behind his friend and headed out towards the sea.

With little else to think about, Cloud started to feel like he was marching off to battle. He embraced it—those sorts of nerves were familiar territory. The last time he'd traveled to the city with such a feeling of purpose, it was to save Aerith. Well, that had gone to shit, but she had forgiven him, and he knew it wasn't his fault. Zack's fate had been inextricably tied to his ever since Nibelheim, and now he was going to the city again to save him. And Goddess be damned, he was going to succeed this time. He had to.

Cloud let the feeling of determination settle over him as they reached the ocean shore, and moonlight reflected off of the water in a way that made it look like glass. They traveled due north as quickly as possible, and as the air cooled with the latitude, the sky started to brighten.

For someone who'd spent so much time breeding chocobos, Cloud could never really comprehend how the golds managed to run over the water so gracefully. Cid had thought it was funny, that he'd named an ocean chocobo after the earth, but Cloud had justified it pretty well. Terra could walk the _whole_ earth, not just parts of it. And the Knights of the Round materia they'd nicked from that obscure island had been more than worth the effort.

Terra seemed to be sensing his appreciative thoughts, because she gave him a happy kweh as the Northern Continent came up on the horizon. Cloud used his free hand to ruffle his friend's hair, as the rising sun shone washed everything in shades of red and gold. "We're almost there, Zack."

He felt a sense of longing grow inside him as they passed Bone Village and rode through the forest. This is where he'd met Aerith, more than once, when he'd been in need.

He could see the City of the Ancients in the distance as they closed in. Back during Meteorfall, the cries of the planet itself could be heard in this canyon, eerie and mournful. The monsters in this area had retreated, and humanity had accepted that mako power was too dangerous to keep using. A deep feeling of peace washed over him, and he knew it wasn't just the spiritual energy of this place.

Entering the city, Cloud dismounted Terra and rearranged his gear. He kept First Tsurugi closest to his back, layered the duffel over that, and finally Zack, his legs hooked through his arms like a very large hiking bag. Cloud hadn't brought a guide rope for the chocobo—she wouldn't wander off too far, and she needed to be able to find greens to eat while they were away.

"Warkwark?" the bird cooed, as Cloud moved to leave.

"Yeah, wark," he replied, stroking the feathers around the base of the chocobo's neck as best as he could around Zack's leg. "See you soon, Terra."

He couldn't get his phone to his ear without dropping Zack, so he settled for sending Tifa a text as he made his way farther into the ruins. _Made it here. I'm still okay. Zack's really heavy though._

Aerith had yet to make an appearance, so he made his way to the pool where he'd let her body come to rest…a part of him felt like it was probably the right place to go.

Sure enough, a blurry vision of her was waiting for him when he reached the clearing in the trees. She gave him her signature sweet smile. "You made it," she said, although he had the distinct feeling her words were only audible in his own mind. "Are you ready?"

"Ready for what, exactly?" he asked, setting all of his things down on the ground before picking Zack back up. The place was deserted, no one would take them.

"Well…if you come to the center of the pool here…"

He followed her out, to close to the exact spot that he'd let her body come to rest. He couldn't help but feel like things had gone full circle, now that he would sort of be doing the opposite.

"The Lifestream is very weak here," Aerith said. "It's much safer for you this way, but it also means you can't get in on your own…I'm going to put you both to sleep, okay?"

"What...what do I do once we're in?" The nerves had finally shown up in full force—Cloud could feel his heart rate increase and his palms get sweaty.

"Trust me," she answered, in a way that eased some of the tension. "You'll know what to do." And with that, she gave Zack's comatose form a light kiss on the cheek, then turned to do the same for Cloud. Slowly and then all at once, the physical world faded away.

The frustrated owner of Seventh Heaven put her hands to her temples. "You called Reno? _Why?_ "

Yuffie shook her head and sighed. "Because you need a distraction," she said. "He can be pretty distracting. And he says you still owe him and the others drinks."

"Damn straight, yo," said a voice at the door. The redhead in question sauntered through the door with a smirk, followed closely by Elena, Rude, and Tseng.

"Uh…hi," Tifa said, reining in her negative feelings. "Not to be rude…but who told you I owed you drinks?"

"The big chocobo himself, yo," Reno responded. "And Yuffers here said that you guys would appreciate some extra company right now."

"Where's Rufus?"

Tseng waved off her question. "He'll be fine. He said he'd appreciate some alone time, which I took to mean he wanted to sic Reno on both of you for the day."

Tifa resisted the urge to rub her temples. It wasn't that she still held a grudge against the Turks for what went down during Meteorfall—on the contrary, they were usually on somewhat friendly terms now. It was just that…Reno was annoying. She knew Cloud appreciated his particular brand of snarky humor, but that didn't mean she had to. "Alright," she said in resignation, "What'll it be?"

The next few hours were…surprisingly pleasant. Reno made a lot of jokes at Yuffie's expense, mostly surrounding their joint encounter with Don Corneo, and she retaliated by unleashing her full arsenal of creative insults on him. Rude hilariously sided with Yuffie, and Tifa added in her own stories. She hadn't forgotten the time the two Turks were gossiping like children outside Gongaga, and she wasn't going to let Reno forget it either.

Thankfully, they kept the conversation clean and didn't get more than a little buzzed, because all four Turks were still at the bar when the kids came home from school.

"Tifa, guess what?" Denzel said, dragging in what looked like a very large bag.

"Did your game win the contest?" Yuffie asked excitedly.

"Yeah! The judges really liked the art on the cards!"

Reno gave the bag a pointed look. "What's in the bag, yo?"

Denzel gave him a suspicious glare, but Marlene answered without hesitation. "Lots and lots of candy!"

The Turk's eyes widened at the mention of candy. "No way…"

Denzel's face lit up with a sly grin. "If you want any of the candy, you're gonna have to beat me at cards."

"You're on, yo."

Tifa couldn't help but feel immensely proud as Denzel wiped the floor with Reno for every round of Triple Triad they played. The Turk insisted that he was only letting the boy win, but his greatest blunder each hand was that he couldn't resist using the Reno card every chance he had—and that card didn't have particularly good numbers.

Marlene and Rude had taken some of the deck and were playing a game of their own, and Yuffie had to leave before it got too late to cover the most urgent deliveries, leaving Tifa at one of the corner tables with Elena and Tseng.

The brunette had always appreciated Elena—she did her job and she did it well, but she didn't let it take over her life and she didn't let the criticism of others bring her down. Tifa really liked that sort of attitude. Above all, the blonde was usually kind and understanding to them in a way that most of the other people affiliated with former ShinRa just weren't.

"In all honesty, Tifa," she said after the three of them had a few drinks, "how have you been holding up?"

"It's been…hard, I'll admit," she responded. "I mean, I've been through this once already with Cloud. But he's never been on this side of it."

"What is he doing up north right now?" Tseng asked.

Tifa had hoped this wouldn't come up. Turks were Turks, and she could never be sure that Rufus wouldn't find some way to use this information against them…but if he wanted to know, he'd get the information somehow. Might as well tell the truth. "He's gonna see if he can get inside Zack's mind, like I did…through the Lifestream."

Elena gave a small gasp, and her eyes widened in concern. "Isn't that especially dangerous, though? For him?"

"Yes, but…we've got a friend helping us. He'll get back out again. Zack, I'm not so sure," she said, taking another sip of her drink. "It's all up to Cloud now."

Tseng nodded thoughtfully, seeming to understand what she meant. "Hopefully…he can succeed where we failed."

 _Wait…what?_ "Come again?"

After drinking a rather large sip from his cocktail, Tseng related to her the Turks' own stake in the ambush on the cliff. It was hard to tell with him, but Tifa could sense that he felt…guilty. She tried to be understanding, but she didn't know him well enough to know how to react. Thankfully, Elena changed the subject quickly.

Eventually, the bar opened for regular business, although the Turks still hung around. Tifa made burgers and chips for everyone, and most of her regular patrons were fairly entertained by Reno's antics. _I could hire him to just sit around, maybe get some more business. If I could put up with him on a regular basis, that is._

Just as the sun was setting, Yuffie returned. "Any news, Tifa?" she asked.

"Not yet," the barmaid responded, mixing margaritas for a couple sitting at the end of the bar. "It's been all day…I'm getting really worried."

"If you're that anxious, yo, just send him a text," Reno said over his whiskey. "It'll make ya feel better if nothin' else."

Tifa nodded and pulled out her phone, trying to think of what to say, eventually just setting on _please call._ It's not like Cloud would need to know what she meant. _I sure hope he's alright…_

Cloud opened his eyes, but everything around him was black.

He was drifting through a sort of thick nothingness…was this the Lifestream? Or…where was he? It was all very confusing.

Suddenly, a thought bombarded him from all sides, one that he identified as distinctly foreign. _Who…are you? And…who am I?_

"Zack, is that you? Where are you?"

 _No…I can't be. That's not right. You…you know what this is, don't you? You attacked me!_

"No, I would never do that! Gaia…I didn't know it was you! _You_ didn't know it was you! I could never hurt you…"

 _Okay, I guess…but still…who am I?_

Cloud had no idea what he was doing. He could hardly remember what happened when Tifa saved him—he remembered feeling very confused, and having to question a lot of things—hold on, that gave him an idea. "…Who do you think you are?"

 _Ha, I guess I haven't really thought about it too much. Um…I was in SOLDIER, right? No…no I wasn't. I tried to get in, but I failed, and then a lot of bad things happened…I let a lot of people down…_

"That wasn't you, you never let anyone down! That was me."

 _Are you sure? That seems pretty…me to me. Wait…who are you again?_

"…I'm your best friend, remember?"

 _I don't have a best friend anymore….I'm not worth it, I'm just a weapon. I couldn't save any of them, I failed…_

Cloud took a deep breath. Or, a deep something. He supposed he wasn't really in any physical place with physical air to breathe. "I want to help you, but I can't see anything."

 _I'll see what I can do._

The black nothingness swirled all around Cloud, and he felt like he was being flushed down a drain. A metaphysical drain.

He suddenly found himself in what he guessed was Zack's subconscious. It was overwhelmingly green, which he'd expected, and... _wait a minute_. "Zack?! Where are you?"

The image of his friend appeared somewhere above him, holding his head and screaming silently. A single door appeared in front of him, and something that looked like the floor of the old Sector 5 reactor materialized under him.

Walking through the door, Cloud found himself in Wutai. Or a vision of it, anyway. He saw a younger Zack and Angeal standing outside what he recognized as Fort Tamblin, and another Zack suddenly appeared next to him.

Cloud hesitantly reached out to touch his arm, unsure of how to act around the mental manifestation of someone's soul. "Do you know who that is?" he asked.

"Yeah…the younger one is…me, right? He looks like me, anyway. My name was..."

In the memory, Angeal said, "Use brings about wear, tear, and rust. And that's a real waste." _He'd be pretty mad if he could see the Buster Sword now…_

The Zack next to him furrowed his brow in concentration. "I remember…he used to call me 'puppy.' But that's definitely not my name, right? Please tell me that's not my name."

Cloud laughed a little, and was then relieved when the sight of past-Zack leaping over the brush caused current-Zack to have a sort of epiphany.

"So…okay, I believe you. My name is Zack, I remember now. But…" he turned to Cloud, "…where is this, then? _When_ is this? Who are you, anyway?"

Both men simultaneously scratched the backs of their heads, and then looked at each other awkwardly. Cloud cleared his throat. "Well…this is Fort Tamblin, so this must have been towards the end of the Wutai war, about…wow, about a decade ago."

Zack gave him a searching look, taking note of how he conveniently ignored the last part of the question. Past-Zack made his way through the front gates, and they followed him. A little girl Cloud recognized ran out to confront him.

"Wait…I've seen her before," Zack said next to him. "And…not like that. More recently."

Cloud nodded. "That's good—I know that definitely happened, so that means you're remembering something. Who is she, though?"

"She's…very confident, is what it looks like," the older man said, watching his younger self's encounter with nine-year-old Yuffie. "Why did I pretend to lose?"

"Because you're a cool guy like that, Zack. But seriously, do you remember her name?"

"I think it was…Yuffie, right?" he answered, and Cloud nodded excitedly. "Wait, you know her too?"

"Yeah, I know her pretty well," he said truthfully. _Should I be telling him this? Is it gonna mess things up?_ "She's grown up a lot since then, but…she's still got that confident attitude."

"Didn't she try to steal my stuff at one point?"

"Probably," Cloud replied, snickering. "I wouldn't know for sure, but we can ask her soon, alright?" _Gaia, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing._

Zack made a move to follow his younger self inside the fort, and Cloud trailed close behind. They watched him fight the monsters inside, and then watched past-Zack get thrown against the wall. "Wow, that was stupid of me," he said.

"You got smarter…eventually."

Angeal followed in, and current-Zack's face lit up in recognition when he saw the older man fight with the Buster Sword.

"You're a little more important than my sword," Angeal said. "But just a little." And then the memory faded, he was back in the Sector 5 reactor. Cloud was pleased to note that dream-Zack had followed him out. _That's gotta mean something._

"That—that was my sword!" he said excitedly, putting his arms up as if he wasn't sure what to do with them. "But wait…why would I be in charge of something like that if I never made SOLDIER?"

"Because you _did_ make SOLDIER," Cloud answered patiently. "I think you were even second in command at one point."

"Wow…I was pretty far off, then," Zack said, looking sheepish. "Then who was I thinking of?"

 _What do I say?_ "I…think you need to find that answer for yourself." Zack pouted at him, but Cloud didn't budge. "I'm serious, these are _your_ memories we're sorting through."

Several doors suddenly appeared around them, and Zack debated for a moment before picking one. The blond let him go in first, and they suddenly found themselves just outside Gongaga.

Past-Zack conveniently identified the place as his hometown, and it didn't seem to surprise current-Zack at all. "Yeah, I remember my parents being from there," he said. "I…haven't seen them in a while, I think."

A woman Cloud didn't recognize showed up and started talking to a very tense-looking Zack. "Couldn't you guess your hometown would be...the first place we'd look?"

"And…yeah, her name was Cissnei. She was…a Turk, right?" Zack said, looking to Cloud for confirmation.

"I actually don't know who she is," he replied, "but she looks like a Turk."

"That was you in the sidecar, yeah?" Zack asked him, and Cloud nodded. "Why were you asleep? And why were Turks looking for us?"

"I wasn't asleep," he said darkly, unsure how much more to say.

Past-Zack turned away from Cissnei. "I think he may have helped us…escape ShinRa manor." Then the memory faded, and they were back in the old reactor once more.

"Why'd we have to escape from somewhere?" Zack asked him, and he took note of the way Cloud's face hardened. "Did…did something bad happen there?"

"You need—"

"—to find out the answer for myself. Yeah, yeah. Let's pick a different door."

Zack found himself drawn to one that gave Cloud an overwhelming sense of dread. "Hey, let's try this one out," he said, frowning when he saw the blond's reaction. "Come on. It's just a memory, right?"

 _Calm down, Strife. It'll be fine._ The sight beyond the door disproved that thought immediately, because it definitely wasn't a part of Zack's memories.

There was the deep hole where the Temple of the Ancients once stood, and Cloud saw himself holding a materia he never wanted to lay eyes on again.

"Whoa, I'm not even in this one," Zack said beside him. "But…that silver-haired dude, his name is Sephiroth. I think we used to work together. Who's that girl, though?" Cloud didn't answer, suddenly realizing something about the full scope of Zack's amnesia. _If Hojo gave him cells of mine from while I was out…some of my memories while under Sephiroth's influence will be in here, and we'll probably have to see all of them…_ "Hey, are you okay?" the other man asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"I won't let you do it! The future is not just yours!" Aerith shouted from below, and Sephiroth just laughed, a sound that still haunted some of Cloud's nightmares.

"Ha, ha, ha…I wonder?"

Despite how much it hurt to watch, the scene was still just a memory. Cloud only felt the ghost of Jenova's control as his past self convulsed in pain. The image faded in and out as past-Cloud lost consciousness, and Zack's eyes widened in worry and shock. "This…this one's your memory, isn't it?"

 _I need to be strong, or we're not going to make it back out of here._ Cloud didn't look at him, but Zack seemed to understand. "Sephiroth…he was using you as…a puppet," he said with some certainty. "I think someone was using me as a puppet, too…but why is your memory in my head?"

Past-Aerith knelt down on the ground. "Cloud…be strong, okay? It's not your fault."

"Damn right, it's not his fault!" Zack exclaimed. _Even when he's so lost, he's still trying to protect me._ "…Whatever it was."

The memory faded, and both men found themselves back on the Sector 5 reactor floor another time. "So, do you wanna tell me why some of these memories aren't mine?" Zack asked him, crossing his arms.

"I…think you need to remember who I am first, before I can answer that," Cloud said. "Let's try another—"

He was interrupted as the floor gave way, and they found themselves falling into a very different reactor.

"What about MY sadness?! My family…friends? The sadness of having my hometown taken away from me!? It's the same as your sadness!"

"What…" Zack seemed confused at the memory before them. Hell, Cloud was, too. "Why…what did he do?"

"This…this is all wrong, Zack," Cloud said. "This isn't what happened. It's fake."

Sephiroth glared, holding Jenova's mutilated head. "I have orders to take the Planet back from you stupid people for the Cetra. What should I be sad about?"

"Hold the phone," Zack said, and the memory literally stopped. _He's regaining control…?_ "I definitely remember Sephiroth saying something like that to me. Why am I not there, then?"

"Because…honestly, I'm not sure why this memory is here," Cloud answered, scratching the back of his head. "This is what _I_ thought happened for a while…but I know the truth now. You should have the real memory in there somewhere, too. So try…try to remember…"

Zack screwed his eyes shut and balled his hands into fists. All at once, the scene changed again—the same reactor, but with Zack in Cloud's place. "Yes, yes!" the blond exclaimed. "You did it, this is the right one!"

The older man indulged himself in his first victory squat of the day, much to Cloud's delight. _He's acting more and more like himself again. That has to be good._

They watched as Zack lost his battle with Sephiroth. After a few minutes, a helmeted trooper carried the Buster Sword and stabbed the silver-haired man through the back. "I had so much respect for you…I admired you…"

"That trooper had a lot of nerve, taking my sword and then trying to take it out on the General," Zack mused beside him. Seeing his younger self get nearly killed hadn't fazed him all that much, but Cloud knew he didn't prioritize his own safety very high. They wouldn't be here right now if he did.

"Well, he was pretty pissed off," Cloud answered, being careful not to give too much away and putting old feelings aside.

Zack gasped when the trooper took off his helmet. "Oh, that was you, Spike!" he said in wonderment. Cloud's face lit up at the familiar nickname, and Zack looked confused for a moment. "Wait, your name isn't actually Spike, is it?" he asked incredulously.

"No…but you did used to call me Spike a lot," Cloud answered. "You're remembering more and more."

Past-Cloud went back into the room with the pods and ran over to Tifa's bleeding body. "Hey…that girl, she was our tour guide, right?" Zack asked, and Cloud nodded. "Her name was Tifa…she kept asking me if there were any blond guys in SOLDIER."

Cloud blushed ( _she never told me about that_ ) and Zack grinned and ruffled his hair, a familiar gesture. "What, is she your girlfriend or something?"

"In a sense, yeah," he answered, finding no reason to lie about this one. "But…it's more complicated than that. I'll tell you later, okay?"

They kept watching the memory, but before Sephiroth reentered, the floor gave way again, and they found themselves in a very familiar church.

"Hey, it's that other girl again," Zack said, eyes going wistful. "Man, is she _beautiful_."

Cloud could swear he heard another giggle from somewhere behind them. _Is she watching us, even now?_

"An angel?" past-Zack said, looking up from the floor.

"No! I'm Aerith."

"Okay Spike, please tell me I ended up dating her," Zack said next to him. "I'd be really mad at myself now if I didn't."

Cloud shushed him. "Just watch."

"No, no…hey, how about one date?" younger Zack said, holding up one finger and causing current Zack to double over with laughter.

"Man, I wasn't subtle at all, was I?" he said, looking very amused. "Did I do that to anyone else?"

"Uh, me, actually," Cloud said with a tinge of embarrassment. "I think."

Zack wasn't paying attention, though—too wrapped up in memories of his old girlfriend. Rather than disappearing like the other places they'd seen, the church stayed as the two men watched what seemed like every time Zack visited Aerith in the church. _Thanks for making at least this part easy, Aer._

When they finally found themselves back in the room with the doors, Zack seemed calmer than Cloud had yet seen him. The next door he picked had another strange aura around it, and Zack couldn't seem to sense it—Cloud braced himself for the worst.

Sure enough, a series of happy memories had to be followed up by a cruel one. Cloud saw his younger self on a platform very close to where their physical bodies must be now, sword in hand.

"Oh…this is another one of your memories, isn't it?" Zack asked, not really looking for confirmation. "And you've got my sword again…hey, what's Aerith doing…whoa, what are _you_ doing?!"

"Stop!" past-Tifa yelled from somewhere beyond sight.

"Ugh…what are you making me do?" past-Cloud said, backing away.

Cloud turned away at what happened next—he'd seen it too many times—but Zack watched it all, if his cries of grief were anything to go by. He couldn't ignore his younger self's pained words, though.

"…Shut up. The cycle of nature and your stupid plan don't mean a thing. Aerith is gone. Aerith with no longer talk, no longer laugh, cry…or get angry…"

"Spike, please tell me this one isn't real," Zack pleaded, shaking the blond's shoulders. Cloud couldn't bring himself to say it, and the other man couldn't look away as the rest of that memory played out, all the way through him laying Aerith's body to rest. "So you loved her too…" _Yeah, I did._

Mercifully, the scene faded again before Cloud could say something stupid, and they found themselves back in the no-space again. The number of doors was definitely decreasing, much to Cloud's relief—but Zack still had a lot missing.

"Which door doesn't give you a bad feeling, Spike?"

He picked the one closest to them, getting to the point where he just wanted to get this over with, and was _incredibly_ relieved to see the mountain terrain of Modeoheim in front of them.

Past-Zack and a trooper were somewhat ahead of two others. "A mako reactor outside Midgar usually means…"

"Nothing else out there," the two said together, and their laughter filled the air.

Zack smiled next to him. "There's something really nice about this memory…" he said. "That's…you under the helmet, isn't it?"

"Good news, Tseng! Me and…"

The trooper took off his helmet to reveal familiar blond spikes. "Cloud."

"Me and Cloud here are both backwater experts. Oh yeah!"

The Zack standing next to him was even more excited than the Zack in the memory. "You're Cloud! Your name is Cloud! Man, I'm sorry, I'm just so happy I remember it now!"

He didn't resist when Zack pulled him in for a hug—he'd almost forgotten how affectionate the other man could be. "It's alright," he said. "This was the day we met."

"Well, I think I'm starting to remember more now," Zack said cheerfully. "I…we got close pretty fast, and I think you were my best friend, yeah?"

"I mean, you were definitely _my_ best friend."

Zack was only halfheartedly paying attention to the memory before them—a lot of things seemed to be rushing back to him all at once—but he got very serious again when his younger self found Genesis. "Oh no," he said. "I…something bad happens here."

His happy expression faded more and more as he watched his confrontation with the ex-SOLDIER, and then became one of pure distress when they watched Angeal turn into a monster. Zack brought a shaky hand to the scar on his face as his younger self earned it.

Both Zacks started to cry at the same time, and Cloud reflexively reached out to take his hand. Zack held onto it like a lifeline as Angeal uttered his last words. "Protect your honor, always…"

Past-Zack held up the Buster Sword like a prayer, and the grip on Cloud's hand tightened. "…he just gave me the Buster Sword…and you had it when Aerith was killed. Did I…?"

 _Oh no_. Modeoheim was swept away in an instant, and their escape from the labs played out as if in fast-forward. Zack watched them run from troops and Turks alike, watched himself take care of Cloud, and watched himself fight Genesis one last time. "Cloud…they did so much to us…you had mako poisoning…I…I didn't know what to do…"

Finally, the rocky outcrop where it all ended appeared before them. Past-Zack ruffled past-Cloud's hair, and the younger man raised a hand in protest as he went out to meet their attackers. _This is going to be harder for him to watch than it is for me._ Cloud squeezed his hand in reassurance. There wasn't anything he could do to make this easier.

Zack winced as he watched himself decimate so many soldiers, watched himself get shot to pieces. "I…I did it all for you, Cloud…" he said, eyes wide with grief. "I missed you so much…I thought taking you to Aerith was our only option, even though I knew it would probably be suicide…"

The sun disappeared, and the rain began to fall as past-Cloud dragged himself over to the edge of the cliff. "Z-Zack…"

"For the…both of us…"

"Both…of us?"

"That's right. You're gonna…"

"You're gonna…"

" _Live_ ," past-Zack said, dragging past-Cloud's face to where his heart lay open and bleeding. "You'll be the proof that I existed. My honor…my dreams…they're yours now."

The Zack beside him broke down, letting go of Cloud's hand in favor of pulling him into his arms and crying into his hair. "Gaia, Cloud…I'm so sorry," he said, shaking. "I died, and I left you all alone…"

"It's not your fault, and you're not dead," Cloud said determinedly, hugging back and rubbing those small circles, in hope that it would be comforting for Zack too.

"Thank you," his past self said. "I won't forget." _Here come the tears…so much for being strong._

"Zack…I…I fucked up too, okay," he confessed. "I forgot you, and I forgot everything else too, and I almost destroyed the world before I could remember again…"

The other man didn't have anything to say to that, so they just continued the embrace as white feathers rained down around them. Time seemed to stretch and speed up at the same time, and a layer of green washed over everything. Eventually, a ShinRa helicopter landed, and Hojo got out and instructed a few lackeys to take Zack's body.

The helicopter flew all the way to Wutai, and Hojo unceremoniously threw Zack's body into the strange mako tank and started to type commands into the computer console.

The amount of green in their vision increased, and Zack broke the hug. "Cloud…how am I here right now? I died. I…I remember being in the Lifestream, remember starting to become a part of it."

Cloud couldn't tell what was going on, but Zack seemed to understand some fundamental aspect of what was happening as the colors of the Lifestream swirled around them. "So Aerith came back to me after all, huh," he said softly. "And then…ah. You got sick again, but you were survived…so Hojo put some of your cells in me…to see if it would bring me back…"

A hole in the green suddenly appeared before them, and Cloud saw himself and his friends in the bar, and he finally understood what happened. "Zack…once I remembered you, I didn't tell anyone but Tifa about it for a long time. I think when I did, it…called your spirit back into your body, somehow."

"Yeah, it did…because I didn't want to exist for another moment without you." _Gaia, if he wanted to make me cry again, he could've just said so._

The bar disappeared and so did the Lifestream, and they found themselves standing in the no-space again, with all the doors gone.

"Spike…I got sick too, didn't I?" Zack said, looking away. "How…how long was I out?"

"You've been comatose for a few weeks," Cloud answered, struggling to keep his voice even. "But…before that, you'd been gone for…three years."

Zack took a few heaving breaths. "That long, huh? Well…what do we do now? We're in the Lifestream, aren't we?"

"Yeah…Aerith said she'd get us out." _Hey Aer, now would be a good time to take us home._

He felt her presence wash over him again, and Zack's mind disappeared along with everything else.

Cloud opened his eyes to find himself on the pedestal where Aerith had died, clothes almost dry. He must have been asleep for a while. He sat up and stretched his arms, looking around for Zack. _Oh no…did he not make it? After everything that just happened!?_

Cloud frantically scanned the area for his friend, seeing no trace of him. "Aerith, where'd he go? Zack! Zack, where are you?!" But her spirit was gone, probably spent from getting him out, and Cloud ran around the clearing in a haze of panic.

He ran up that horrible staircase, and burst through the door to the clearing to see Zack standing up from where he'd washed ashore. The other man turned around, and, thank Gaia, recognition flashed in his eyes. "Cloud?"

It was only for the speed of Zack's mako reflexes that they both weren't knocked back into the pool again with the force of Cloud's embrace.

"It's you, it's really you…" he said, burying his face into Zack's neck, not caring if the tears flowed. He deserved a few good cries after what they'd been through to get here.

He heard Zack's voice, hoarse with emotions. "Yeah, it's really me."

Cloud held onto Zack like he was the only solid thing in the whole world, and tried not to babble nonsense as his best friend rubbed small circles into his back. He was never, _ever_ losing him again, not for the rest of their lives.


End file.
